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.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Bone Marrow Results Back - Normal!

It's been a long time coming, but it's all good. I didn't even put it out here, because I didn't really understand it, and I didn't have the right answers or questions. Back at our March Office Visit (before Hawaii), Dr. R. shared with us a red flag in Hans' blood work. His MCV value has been climbing over time (normal values are in the 80's and since January, Hans' MCV's have been over 100). This is the 'mean corpuscular volume' or size of the red blood cells. She explained that this could be a sign of Hans getting "pre-leukemia". One horrific side effect of NB's toxic treatments is a secondary cancer...commonly Leukemia (AML, which is more difficult to treat than ALL). It only happens in about 5% of our kids, and it tends to occur about 5 years out from diagnosis. So - here we are 4.5 yrs out getting this news. We were told to go about our business, go on our trip, proceed with the move, and to simply schedule bone marrows at our next round of scans. We did this. All I will say is that I've been pretty somber whenever I've thought about the possibility of this Leukemia. And I have thought of it frequently over the past 7 weeks or so. Thankfully Kevin wasn't worried. He just had a gut feeling that it would be okay.

Hans' marrows went through NB testing (negative), a test for MDS which is a syndrome that could lead to the pre-leukemia (if I am understanding this correctly), it was negative, and finally, he underwent Cytogenetic testing of the marrow. We just got those results back yesterday - normal. I am thanking God, as these results are just about all I have been able to pray for these past weeks.

Dr. Mosse explained to me that sometimes when kids have seen as much treatment as Hans has, the MCV value just grows. There are no side effects of that growth. I can put that mental fire out of my mind that has been burning there a while - and widen the scope of my prayers.

6 comments:

Stephanie said...

It was agonizing for you to wait for all three results over such a long time. So many of our prayers have been answered!

Thankfully Hans was happy and active all along! And I am proud to report that he gave a wonderful presentation to his class on Skype this week! (While I was there he researched jaguars and wrote a report for the unit on the rain forest.)

Prayers for all kids' recovery,
G'ma Stephanie

Anonymous said...

great news!

Way to go Hans! I bet you gave a great report :)

Hugs to all,
Love Aunt Holly and Uncle Michael

Anonymous said...

Oh, my...may the welcomed, fabulous news go on and on!

May your minds and hearts take a deep breath and ease into the exciting move to come!

WOW...Hans the researcher and reporter! FUN!

Love and hugs,
Aunt Susy

Anonymous said...

La - (and all) We love you! pl

Delayna Bee said...

Just updated myself on ALL your big news. Hooray for Han's good numbers! Hooray for jaguars and rain forests and skype! Hooray for California and beaches and new jobs! Hooray for smart girls and clever guys!

Love your family!

Anonymous said...

I second Ms Bee. :)

Xx the cousin Erin of Chicago