The Results

Tuesday July 31st we got the results from the pathology. They did find some cancer cells and Davin has Ganglioneuroblastoma. We did an MRI the day before and all the doctors had looked at that and come to the conclusion that Davin's tumor is too large and too involved with the bones at the base of his spine to just go in and remove it. The surgery would be really difficult, risky, and involve many specialty surgeons, so they wanted to do two cycles of chemo to shrink the tumor enough so that they can remove it easier.

Dr. Elderidge our oncologist also said that because of the kind of cancer Davin has they have a special scan that they wanted to do. It is called a MIBG. They give Davin some contrast one day and then the next day he goes in and She said it was kind of like the MRI, and it should light up all of the cancer cells so that they can see where those cells are exactly. Dr. Elderidge has scheduled that for Wed. Aug. 8th and then his scan is on the 9th.

Chad and I were really sad about the fact that we had to do chemo. We were really hoping that they would just do the surgery and we would be done with everything except recovery from surgery in a week. Instead we are facing two months of chemo and then a surgery. Not fun!

Later that night Dr. Elderidge called me again and told me that she had set things up to admit Davin to the hospital on Wed. when he comes up for the contrast and he would start his chemo treatments. As far as I know (I will learn more on Wed.) the treatments start with Davin staying at the hospital for 3-4 days. Durning his stay he gets a dose of the chemo drugs everyday. The first time there will be a lot of teaching both for us and for Davin. After those few days we go home and try and help Davin not be too sick. We will also have to watch his blood count. Dr. Elderidge said that we could possibly do that at home and if we can't we would have to go up to the hospital a few times.

Today Chad talked with the surgeon and he said that we probably won't do more than the two cycles of chemo. So hopefully we can plan on doing a surgery to get the tumor out around the end of Sept. We still don't know how sick Davin will be or if he will loose his hair. From things that Chad and I have read most people start loosing their hair within 1-3 weeks of starting chemo. We will just have to see how well Davin reacts to the drugs. I am hoping he won't be too sick because he never acts sick when he is. Hopefully he will just be a little sleepier and not too grumpy.

As for visitors we can't let anyone come over that is sick. We really don't want Davin to have a harder time being sick than he has too. Another sad part is that Davin won't get his wish for a puppy as soon as he was hoping. They have told us not to introduce any new allergens of any kind which include puppies. But we will get through this and it will really only be for a short time.