About Me

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Bakersfield, CA, United States
Hans was a busy, happy, sweet and fearless three year old when he was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma. He fought his disease like a "gladiator" for nearly 6 years. Hans was an animal lover to his core. He was 'guarded' at home by his three cats, Black, Orange and Cotton. He also had his Golden Retriever, Honey, to keep him company. Hans enjoyed swimming, biking, gardening, grilling (he had his very own grill!), horseback riding, playing video games, building Legos, and flipping between Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Animal Planet. Hans loved all members of his family and he was a loyal friend. He had to go through a lot of treatment in his life. But Hans powered through it. His attitude was let's get this done! His motivation was always to get back home, to his family, pets, favorite foods and pool.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Thursday's Clinic Visit Update

Hi there -

We had a pretty great clinic visit yesterday. Here are the highlights:

-Hans is done with his 21-day round of oral Etoposide Chemotherapy as of today!

-Hans's labwork is back and his kidney function appears to be normal. It is presumed, based on the other results we now have on hand, that the Kidney Function Test we did back in July was just a bad test/false positive in a way.

-Hans had labwork done yesterday - his hemoglobin, platelets and white count are all great! We weren't sure what the oral chemo was doing to him - so that was a relief.

-Some of his electrolytes and his liver panel were a little off yesterday. Dr. Russell said this can be explained by the chemo. To me it explains why he has been a little more lethargic lately and not quite the old spunky Hans.

-Now that we think Hans' Kidneys are functioning normally, we can go back to Plan A for maintenance/relapse prevention which is Accutane. We'll just first go back into the clinic next Thursday to make sure his electrolytes and liver enzymes have stabilized. If so, we'll start Accutane next week.

-Accutane is a 14-day on/14-day off, twice daily medication. From what I understand it can be something of a pain to administer. We'll be giving Hans a capsule twice a day, wish us luck! The possible side effects include irritability, skin peeling and sensitivity to the sun. Hans will be on Accutane for six months, so I'm really hoping life on Accutane won't be that rough!

-The Make A Wish trip to Costa Rica was temporarily put on hold when Hans' Hypoglycemia presented itself. Now, Dr. Russell just wants to see how Hans fares on Accutane for one month, if all goes well, she'll give Costa Rica her thumbs up! We're getting the kids' passports today:)

Prayers for dear sweet little Chloe. Yesterday they saw a spot on one of her scans. We met this family on Halloween, 10 day into Hans' cancer experience. Chole was cancer free in May. I'm praying for the best results on next week's Biopsy.


I'll post more "life" stuff later...Elle goes back to school on Monday and starts soccer next week!


Lara

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1 comment:

Claire Rider said...

So happy to hear continued good results about Hans kidneys! Good Luck as you start Accutane. We'll have to trade tips!

2:03 PM

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