The latest!!

Sorry this is a little late!! Things have been crazy busy!! Things have changed a little now. They are in the hospital for the next week. They are trying to start chemo tomorrow. If all the test they have to do again come back okay then they start. They are doing a really intense round this time. Its going to be 5 days and 4-6 hours of straight drip every day. Then after this round of chemo they will do all the scans again and see if things are better. The dr's are really trying their hardest to save his eye sight. They tinkered with the idea of doing sugery on friday to try and remove some of the tumor but decided it was still too risky. The scans from the rest of his body can back good though. Things look really good there!! So keep praying and Lukas just keeps fighting!!

Ok, here is the latest. Monday we got to Cooks at 7am to register for Radiology then went up to get sedated for radiation. Lukas got his last dose of radiation at 8:05am. Once he woke up we had to be at Radiology to start the 2 hours of drinking contrast for his scans. At 11am he was back to NPO (nothing by mouth) for 2 hours. At 1pm, when Lukas was as hungry and miserable as he could possibly be we went back for more sedation and the start of the scans. After 3pm he was done and in recovery. When we were leaving we ran into Dr. Granger. She said she would reviewd the scans and call me that night. She reviewed the head CT and Bone Scan Monday night and called me. There is no change in the Bone Scan compared to the first one done in November (same week of diagnosis). Also, there doesn't appear to be any change in the head tumor. There should be some change but radiation continues to work for around 3 weeks after it's finished so HOPEFULLY there will be some change soon. Dr. Granger said that she wants to see what Dr. Hunt (opthamologist) and Dr. Hogan (Neuro-Opthamologist) have to say about the nerve damage and what Thursday's scans show. If there isn't any change or things have gotten worse, we are going to get more aggressive with chemo. She also mentioned possible stem-cell transplant and more radiation down the road. She said that the cancer is being a "difficult intermediate" and the treatments we've been doing might not be strong enough. Tuesday we went in for clinic. Dr. Howrey said that we are going to collect stem cells about a week or week and a half after this 4th round of chemo. We'll plan on doing this round according to the protocol Lukas is on now unless all the docs (oncologists and opthamologists) decide to get more aggressive right away-which I'm hoping they do. The CT's also showed that Lukas is really constipated, his colon is really full, so we have to start on laxatives. Thank you codine. Dr. Hunt was at his Harris office so he squeezed us in while we were in the area. The optic nerves aren't getting better, if anything they are getting worse so he will be calling the oncologists and working with them for our next steps.Today (Wed) we went in to get the radioactive MIBG injection for tomorrows scans. Thursday we go in for the MRI and then the MIBG scans (all under sedation). He can't eat after 6:30am and then clear liquids until 10am. We have to be back at registration at 11:30 am. Our scans start at 1:30 and will probably take a couple of hours. When those are done we go up to clinic to review them and decide what our next step is. We will be admitted for 3 days for our next round of chemo-whatever dose it might be. That's it so far-a lot of stuff happining already and it's only Wednesday!!! Sheesh, I'm ready for this to be over.