Home again, for birthday night!

Hans and Elle at home...Hans STILL won't smile for the camera...argh!


thirteenth birthday shot with her dad

We are home! Hans' pain is being controlled on oral Oxycodone. It's really a low dose, around the clock. They weaned him slowly off the continuous morphine drip, and then off of the pump. We aren't really sure the cause of the pain... the way I understand it now - when they put the PET CT, MRI and MIBG together - there are spots of disease on a couple vertebrae, the sacrum, the pelvis and a bit on the head. It is all bony spots, no soft tissue disease. There is no disease in the area he is complaining about, and there is no new change in the disease??? So, who knows! Maybe it'll just get better and go away - kind of like his arm about two years ago??? Who knows! We'll take a mystery over a disaster any day. For about a day and a half there we had misunderstood the attending on the floor, and we actually thought he HAD progressed per the PET... but we hung tight and went with our onc and the radiologist's impression - no new disease.

Kevin and Elle drove down to LA Friday night and we switched out. Elle and I ran around town Saturday and spent a girls day... soccer game, shopping, dinner and a movie (Abduction). Fun mommy daughter date! I was incredibly happy just to be at the soccer game... outside...even if it was a 2:30 game at 102 degrees! I was hoping we'd get Hans home soon and we did.

Sunday we drove back down to LA and before we picked up the guys, met Aimee for a b'day shopping splurge for Elle, our now Teenage Daughter, and a nice lunch! It was a good way to make the best of a less than perfect birthday with a brother inpatient. Kevin and Hans were discharged as soon as we finished lunch. We picked them up and went HOME!

Hans continues to show nothing but optimism and faith. Every single time he gets sick or has problems he looks to his doctors to make him better. Repeatedly, in the hospital, Hans sits there and does each procedure like a little pro. Our ER nurse told us "That's the easiest thing I'm going to do all night" after he accessed Hans' port. We heard it all week long, "Why can't my other patients be just like you, Hans?" He is so serious and mature!

We were watching our favorite show together one night last week - King of the Hill (it's the one show Hans and I equally like, I think it's our Texas show). In this one episode, Hank (the dad) was afraid to go to the doctor. Hans laughed and laughed at that! He looked at me, and just couldn't get it, he went on and on "Doctors aren't scary, doctors are nice, doctors only want to help! Doctors are your friends! How could Hank be scared of Doctors?"