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.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Oct 20

Okay - so today is a good day! Hans just enjoyed a little festival here in The Woodlands and was out and about outside for a couple of hours and came home fine! He generally does better and is more stable OFF Accutane. Elle is up camping with her girl scout troop on their first ever campout after 4 years as a troop! I am excited because I am going to go up and join them tonight. I'm doing the campfire/sleepover and breakfast shift. Elle is happy that I get to join her (me too), but mostly I can't wait for S'mores! He got through the bone scan yesterday just fine without tears. The technician told me he must be growing. They are usually able to capture his whole body in 3 slides but yesterday it took 4! That's great. We'll see what he measures at the Office Visit next week. Poor guy was a pretty good sport when it took them 3 tries to get his injection in. I know the technician felt badly, but three tries for one shot is pretty rough.

Last year today we had Hans' follow-up with the Pediatric Urologist on this date. I remember that morning I was proud of Hans. He had just started to do really well with potty training. We had met his friends for a park playdate that morning and he was wearing undies! I remember feeling puzzled as Hans just didn't have the energy of his buddies. He tired more easily and seemed content to sit at the age of the grass while his buddies ran up the hill. Ginger asked if I'd get his blood drawn. I told her I hadn't thought of that, but that I'd ask at my appointment.

We went in to see the doctor. I remember that it was on the tip of my tongue to have him look at Hans' belly which by this point had become swollen and distended. It almost made me think of a malnourished child. Which made me realize that Hans hadn't been eating well. He'd pretty much scaled back to cereal and PBJ's in the past couple of weeks. But, throughout the appointment I failed to point his belly out. And, being a Pediatric Urologist, he was pretty much focused on the waist down. The Doc ordered another testicular ultrasound. When that came back "fine" the doc really started to think Hernia. He thought Hans had probably pulled something in there. I asked him to do bloodwork (Ginger's idea) and he declined, saying he didn't think it necessary! He told me to email him in ten days and we'd do an in-office procedure. I took him home and Kevin thought it was crazy. He just kept saying "look at him, look at his belly! Something is wrong with that kid!" So, we emailed the doc that we were concerned about the belly. Like I said, we were really starting to scratch our heads!

Lara

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