Friday, June 27, 2008

A little wrinkle......

Wednesday saw Rick going back to Children’s for possibly a stroke, seizure or hemorrhage. Three days, two nights and many tests later, those possibilities have been ruled out. The possible cause may have been dehydration, causing a constriction of blood vessels, which may be amplified by the Avastin. He’s home this afternoon and feeling okay.

Good thing is we have lots more data including a fresh MRI, which continues to look like we are pushing this thing back. .

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Another good update!



Rick continues to do very well. His platelets were up to 71,000 yesterday and his ANC rose from 1.15 to 1.51, both important for the chemotherapy to continue. Chemo went ok yesterday, some nausea but it passed. His exam was stable once again. Doctors remain impressed.


He finished school on Tuesday and is looking forward to no homework for a few months.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

More exams.........

Rick continues to be feeling well. Wednesday we had a neurological exam by Dr. Nicole Ullrich, Director of NeuroOncology at Children’s who has followed Rick for the last couple of years for his Neurofibromatosis (NF). She told us that he is doing “remarkable”. No cognitive or physical affects were noted. Amazing after all he’s gone through, but also why you can never give up hope. No way to know how long we can expect things to last, but for today we seem to have found a way to check the cancer from growing.

She and Dr. Herrington are presenting a paper later this month on the positive relationship between NF and Avastin for treating Stage 4 GBM tumors. Theory is that NF may change the vascular system, allowing for better results than non-NF patients.

His platelets were 56,000 so he’s in good shape for more chemo next week.

School ends next week so he will be going into 4th grade this Fall. I wasn't sure we'd make the end of the school year so this is a great milestone.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Some very good news!

Well, we went back to Dana Farber Wednesday for another round of treatments. His platelets were 58,000, which was fine, but his ANC was down so the dose of Irinotecan was slightly reduced. His exam was fine.

The best part of the day was seeing the MRI films from last week for the first time. Truly amazing, the tumor is maybe 10% of what it was back in March! Swelling has also decreased.

So not only have the drugs stopped the growth, it was even smaller than when they found it six weeks after his last surgery. The 22 cm lump? Gone! They can’t say how long or what more to expect, but the words the doctor used was “very impressive”.

My thanks for all the prayers!

Next appointment is two weeks.