Successful Day

Another busy snowy day here in Western New York. It was a day of laundry, Brady's physical, oh yes, and those 4 wild monkeys!

I had to drag sweet Brady out of his crib right in the middle of nap time to get on the road to Rochester. The roads were snowy, but we got there and back by going slowly. Being home most days, I'm not that used to driving in the snow. I'm even less used to wiping the snow off of my car. I was quite glad that my dear husband remembered to put a snowbrush in the van! Brady did great during his appointment. He was far less reserved than ever before and even giggled with our pediatrician a little bit. It is amazing to see him sort of "healing" as he learns to become more and more comfortable around people.
The pediatrician and I discussed Brady's back deformity that is starting and she agreed that perhaps we may want to switch orthopedic doctors to one who deals primarily with pediatric patients. There is another doctor who is affiliated with Strong that we could go see. Our plan is to keep our appointment next week with the doctor we saw a few months ago. I'm interested to see his opinions of things now that something does seem to be happening with Brady's spine. His original thought was that it most likely would happen during adolescence. We'll see what he has to say, and in the meantime make an appointment with the other doctor.
So, here we are. As you all know, Matt and I are willing to go anywhere, see anyone who has the most experience with this type of problem. We have scoured the internet and it is tough to find much of anything related to toddlers who have had 5 level laminectomies. This is an area for prayer right now! We are praying for God's wisdom and direction as we take on this next challenge.

Great Appointment Today!

We just got back from our appointment with the new oncologist and I wanted to quickly type an update.

Everything from the scans looks great! There is a small piece of residual tumor that hasn't changed since the last scans. All other areas that were "out of the ordinary" we assume are post-surgical changes. His HVA and VMA are both 12 (down from 151 and 87 originally!). HVA is well within normal, and VMA is just one point above normal and we expect that it will come down further. These are the Neuroblastoma markers that show up in urine. His blood levels are all back to normal.

We covered a lot of things during the appointment. The new doctor feels it is important to scan every three months for the first year, and then every 6 months for the next 4 years. So our next set of scans will be in mid-late October. We are going to set up an appointment with a neurosurgeon at Strong in the coming weeks. Brady's first surgery, the laminectomy, puts him at high risk for spinal instability (outward curving of the spine--think hump back!) Obviously this is a huge concern and we want to establish a baseline and have this monitored closely as he grows.

We both felt very good about the new doctor. He obviously knew why we were there and that we had been with another doctor whom he works closely with. I appreciated that he asked us what he could do to meet our needs. I'm sure we have a reputation now, but at least now we feel like someone is on top of Brady's care. He already has submitted the requisition for October's scans. I love that type of efficiency!

Thank you for praying, now we get to praise! God is good!