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, February 13, 2009

Short Commute to our Bake Sale

I have only a 6-floor elevator ride to our bake sale this morning. The downside of the short commute is the fact that we won the 'golden ticket', as my friend Mayada says, to a one (plus?) night's stay on the 9th floor. Poor Hansie has taken a pretty good hit in the form of this virus he is fighting. We had a very rough Wednesday night of Vomiting, Diarrhea, and an emergency stress dose injection of his solu-cortef. By the time Thursday morning rolled around I was ready to RUN into clinic. Poor guy was so wiped out, and he was nothing but skin and bones after fighting off this bug for 6 days now.

I don't do so well on less than a full night's sleep these days, and I was a mess rolling into the clinic. Actually, as soon as Ms. Cynthia in registration asked me, "How are you?" I just exploded in tears. As they always will, the nurses and staff just scooped us up, ushered us into the triage area, and finally I felt relief, and I felt safe, that this familiar staff could take over the job of keeping Hans afloat! Everyone had heard I was freaking out, and then our nurse joked that we needed a guest book at the door to keep track of everyone who popped in to check on us. Hans has all of those ladies in clinic wrapped around his little finger! I guess we all have it pretty good up there.

Hans is hydrating on IV fluids formulated just for his needs. He has started peeing again (thank GOD, I was REALLY freaking out about that one), and he has tested negative for the entire Hepatitis panel. I didn't even have the heart to put it out there that they were testing him for THAT virus, so, now you just get to learn that he does not have it! Since he is not peeing very regularly yet, they may do an ultrasound of the bladder to get any clues as to what is going on with him. Dr. Russell had a very serious talk with me that this is NOT a serious condition, it is just a GI virus and we have to watch our little Hans carefully, but that we'll steer him through this and onto the ABT751...

So, that's our news. I'll update more soon on Hans and our bake sale. A lot of our bakers (including me) had to back out due to being sick or having sick kids. It seems like half the people I know are fighting something off right now. We'll see how the scaled back bake sale goes. Thanks to everyone who was able to bake or work or shop today!

Lara

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks for the update - hang in there, you guys are my heroes. I hope you are not still there on Monday but if you are I will be one of those coming by to see Hans!

Charon said...

Just thinking about you Lara! I'm glad to hear Dr. Russell gave you a pep talk. We're praying for a speedy recovery for Hans!

Love, Charon