Hans is having some strange symptoms this week. Back pain and a cheek rash. The back pain is pretty rough.  I actually cancelled homeschool today and tomorrow. Hans already has a dermatology appointment tomorrow. He has a pretty bad planter's wart on the bottom of his foot. Tomorrow he'll get that removed and we'll have them check out his rash??? What the heck, I guess it's two steps forward one step back, seems like that's about how things usually seem to go around here:(    We are hoping that the back pain could be from the way he has been walking around this wart on his foot trying to overcompensate... He sure doesn't have a fever...

So, I was going to talk about Antibodies some more. Here is a neat, readable, brief article on the findings from back in 2009. The antibody, CH14.18 is actually "monoclonal" aka made from mice! "Ch14.18 binds to a glycolipid molecule called GD2 on the surface of neuroblastoma cells, which provokes an immune attack." I think of it like this: You introduce this substance (CH14.18) into Hans. CH14.18 finds NB. The immune system is known to attack this forgein substance. The next step is that the immune system somehow gets trained to recognize and attack the NB even without the presence of the antibody... Wow, huh? The therapy will consist of 5 rounds over the course of about 5 months and is planned to entail about 7 week-long inpatient stays. There are other agents involved, and some risks/side effects are possible. I guess I'll save that for next time - I need to hang with Hans today!

Thanks for checking up on us.