Bone Marrows Complete

Dawn took this picture Sunday Evening while she was hanging with Hans as I made a much needed and appreciated run for supplies at the Ronald.

Oh my Goodness what a day. I can tell by the site stats that everyone is worried about Hansie this week! Thanks for the love.

Today was one of those awful days you hope you'll block out eventually. Hans woke up and from the get go was just getting worse if not better. He had a debilitating headache (an underlying scary mystery of this hospital stay), and then he vomited his pain meds. We made it up to the Alex Scott (Alex's Lemonade Stand) Day Hospital for our procedure only to get turned away. Since Hans had vomited earlier, the Anesthesiologist suggested a new plan. He sent us back to our room. We were to have the bone marrows done in the Operating Room while intubated. I didn't handle that change up so gracefully. The last time Hans was intubated was for a pretty awful dental procedure. What was it...7 caps? The poor guy came out of there hurting and wincing and crying about his throat hurting for days.

Sooo....we sat in the room and waited. Hans could barely hold on through the time it took to get orders written for IV Morphine for the headache he eventually rated an 8 on the pain scale. Then he slept all day. We got called up to the OR at about 4pm. To my delight, the team decided they could try the procedure without the breathing tube, since so much time had passed since any vomiting, and since they'd have the support of the whole team and the whole floor if anything was to happen. Well, it worked. They went in from the front to get the bone marrows. They are actually hoping to go right through or into (I'm not really sure which) the new spot that is alighting on the MIBG scan. The good news here: they hope to test it for the ALK mutation. We've never been able to test Hans' tumor for it before.

Hans came out of everything okay. With the location of the spot on the MIBG scan, Kevin and I are bracing our selves for news that there is some marrow involvement on that right side.

Now the CT is tomorrow. Let's hope Hans'll drink the contrast even in this state he is in. Sweet boy!

Actually, seeing the improvement I saw this evening, I wouldn't be surprised if we get discharged tomorrow. We haven't had a true fever since Saturday.

Dawn was here to sit with me through the waiting and after. Hans was up and alert for three hours after the procedure. He was even eating and drinking and playing a little! No headaches! No vomiting! Is he about to turn a corner?

Thanks for checking up on us.