Game Plan...

Posted by Jennifer

Austin finished his first round of chemo yesterday. They gave him a blood transfusion today because his blood counts dropped and his second round of chemo is now infusing as I type. Austin is doing well. He was very tired yesterday, we think mainly due to all the activity and not eating for almost 2 days. He had fasted for his scans, and by the time he was admitted and settled, the last thing he wanted was food. He got up and walked around a bit today, and enjoyed playing at the window. He also ate Chick-Fil-A for lunch and has been drinking a lot of milk.

Dr. Patel and Dr. Grimmley have laid out what they hope will be the treatment plan we follow this time around. Dr. Patel has started the first of the chemo rounds, he thinks we will do 3 cycles depending on the response. Austin is getting Cisplatin and VP-16 (Etoposide) back to back for 5 days. He had his bone scan yesterday and Patsy (Dr. Patel's NP) told us tonight that the scan looks good, the only evidence of Neuroblastoma is in the right orbit (eye) which we already assumed. He has his MIBG scans this weekend. We did ask about the size of the "masses" and she said they didn't label the one behind his eye that is growing near his temple/skull but that the one in his chest is small. Those are good things to hear. Dr. Grimmley talked about the type of transplant we will attempt to do as long as Austin responds to the chemo treatment. He wants to do a non-family member cord blood stem cell transplant to basically replace his immune system with one that he hopes will fight off the Neuroblastoma since Austin's own stem cells did not. They took a swab sample yesterday so that they can type him and start looking for a matching donor. We won't proceed with the transplant until we see how he responds to the first rounds of chemo.

We are just taking it day by day and we are trying to stay optimistic. Dr. Patel says that there is an 80% response rate to this type of treatment in Neuroblastoma relapse patients, so we are going off of that. Right now, we don't know how long Austin will be in the hospital... we will keep everyone updated.

Please continue to keep Austin in your prayers.

Thanks,
Jennifer (on behalf of Elizabeth)