Thursday, February 28, 2008

5:58 AM 2/28/2008

Well, so far, no news was pretty good news. Dr. Eames called with the latest set of unofficial results yesterday afternoon. The marrows and aspirates both came negative from the lab at Cook's. Although it is not surprising, it sure is a huge weight off of our shoulders. Once again, we find ourselves in the position of rejoicing that, at least, her marrows aren't jam packed with disease. Of course, the other side of this is that if this is actually neuroblastoma in her body then this result makes it a bit tougher to qualify for study drugs. At this point, I just have to hope that if she truly did relapse that they discover just enough disease to qualify her for the drugs that she needs.

While this is great news it really is only the tip of the iceberg of what is coming. There are many people looking at these marrows and these are just the first of several reports. We are still waiting to hear back from the team at Sloan and Seeger's lab. Sloan will be performing their own morphology but I am hoping they will also be utilizing RT-PCR. Of course, I will probably never know about it, if they do. Regardless, the point is that we will be looking at these marrows from many different angles with many different technologies. We are also still waiting on many of the reports on the imaging studies for Sydney. I am hoping that I will get an indication of what might have been found (or not) today or tomorrow. In just over an hour I will be heading on my way to Los Angeles. The good news about this is that I will be traveling with Dr. David Podeszwa who has a team looking at the MRI and bone scans and tonight I will also run into Dr. Heidi Russell who has another team interpreting the scans. It would be a quick turn around on the results but, you never know, maybe they will know something.

The other good news to report is that the kiddos are all doing wonderfully. Sydney has been having a blast at school and outside of a trip to the nurse for some Tylenol the day before yesterday (she was having pain at the biopsy sites) and then again yesterday when she got a paper cut on the eye. I know. It sounds painful but she was back up and running around within 10 minutes. Snots 2 and 3 are doing well too. All in all we really can't complain. That does not mean that we aren't continuing to hope and pray; just that we are extremely thankful for the continued normalcy amidst all of the stress. I will be coming back on Saturday night and, hopefully, armed with a bunch of knowledge. I already have an inkling of what is coming with the NANT and I am excited about all of the strides that they are making. Last year we left them with many challenges and I am happy to say that I know they have made big strides. I would love to take credit for being the inspiration for their change but I can tell you first hand that they were well on their way to creating the changes I suggested long before I shouted them. It is all about timing. The good news is that it is here. I am excited to hear about what else is coming down the pipeline.

As always, it is my purpose.

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