Friday update – time for some good news
First off, in case you haven’t heard the awesome news, the spinal tap, marrow test and MRI all showed the same thing, the tumor didn’t spread!!! This is the best news we could have hoped for. The pathology test showed the tumor was a Desmoplastic Medulloblastoma, which is just a sub-category of the previously mentioned Medulloblastoma, it was not metastatic. To be honest as I’m writing this I don’t know if all Desmoplastic aren’t metastatic, or just in some cases like Andrew’s. Either way, it’s great news for Andrew.
Treatment is scheduled to start early in the week of October 27th. He starts with 6 weeks of radiation and chemo. During this time he’ll be in the hospital for treatment, but allowed to go home at night. After the first ix weeks he’ll be given a 3 week break before he starts the full chemo treatment. We’re working on a schedule to let people know when they can help, and should have something up here in a few days.
Chemo treatment will be 3 days in the hospital, follow by 3 weeks home. This will most likely be the much harder part of the treatment, but were going to worry about the radiation now, and start planing for Chemo when it gets closer.
Did I mention that Andrew got a Wii? Well, he did, and he’s super excited about it. His motor skills are still really far off from where they started, but were hoping that between physical therapy and Wii Sports he’ll start getting back a lot more control.
Hope to post more photos and stories soon. Thank you to everyone who’s signed the guest book, sent cards and letters and generally had Andrew in their thoughts and prayers.
October 18th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Hi,
I just stumbled onto your website through my medulloblastoma google alerts. My oldest son was dx with medulloblastoma in Feb. 2008. We just finished chemo in Aug. He had 6 weeks (30 treatments) of radiation and 4 rounds of high dosage chemo followed with stem cell rescue. He is getting ready to go back to school next week and we are so excited!!!
It is a long, scary road and I am so sorry that you all have to go through this. Andrew looks like quite the trooper! I was looking at your pictures with the EVD coming out of his head and it reminded me so much of what we went through in Feb. It was Kevin losing his small motor skills that spoke loudly to me that something was wrong. Unfortunatly no one else expect one of my close friends would agree with me. But it all has worked out okay now. We just have to make it through the follow up scans here on out clean!!!
God be with you during this time.
Rachel
October 18th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Sorry one more thing. I wrote an a long description of what we expected Kevin to go through in May. You are welcome to take from it you want if it will help you explain the situation to loved ones. http://michiganherrs.blogspot.com/2008/05/kevins-cancer-treatment-for.html
October 18th, 2008 at 10:25 am
I’m glad to hear the good news Andrew…way to go! You’re kicking cancer’s butt!