Falling into Place

So, things appear to be coming together a little bit.
Yesterday we got a few things squared away. We'll now be pushing our sans up two weeks. We'll be back in Philly for scans on Dec 1/Dec 2. They are going to add an MRI to the agenda. This will give us a perfect 6 week window from the first MRI so we can see if there are any changes. I'm a little worried that comparing scans from two different machines/institutions won't be 'Apples to Apples', but, I sure hope it'll be close enough! We are working out travel arrangements now. Kind of a headache. But, at least we have scan dates!

Oh, and we got an encouraging email from Dr. Maris a few days ago. He had reviewed the original MRI with the Radiologists at CHOP and they thought the findings were consistent with "treated tumor, not active tumor"! We're putting that in the Good News Column. We also got some other good news last week. Most Cancer Centers check and track the urine catecholamines HVA/VMA... They don't follow them at TCH, though, so Kevin and I don't really know how to interpret them for Hans. My understanding is that Dr. R. feels it's a flawed gauge of tumor activity - lots of things (like diet) can make the numbers go up, causing panic among parents. BUT, we did get ours done on order from CHOP his HVA is 8.3, normal is 2.1 to 23! his VMA is 3.3, the lowest it has ever been recorded. But, I guess, it was only 7.8 at diagnosis when he had the Nerf Football sized belly tumor! (normal range 1.7 to 6.5).

Hans started back at school today! I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't a struggle. I think it helped get him in the spirit to go up to campus yesterday and meet with his new teacher, Ms. Latta. He's rolling with the punches better than I could have hoped. Ms. Latta seems like she'll be just wonderful. He seems ready to be reunited with his classmates.

Thanks to Morgan Klein's Girl Scout Troop for Beading for a Cause yesterday with the Lanyard Project! It's fun to see what the kids come up with. We are staying pretty busy around here. I'm going to another workshop at Carlie's Aunt's on Sunday. I still don't have many stocked up for the next bake sale. I can't hang on to them. We did one at Dana's last Friday - and everybody bought them for teacher gifts!

That's the latest - Today is a good day. Kevin is in Oklahoma for a meeting, but he was able to make it an up-and-back in just one day. That's the way Hans likes it. It's fun to hear him pronounce Oklahoma when he is protesting, "I don't like it when you hop on a plane and go to Oklahoma, just go to work in our town!" I think he's fine as long as he gets to fly home at night.