Sorry for the lack of Updates

So sorry for the lack of updates, as many of you follow Adam's journey and when we do not update I am sure you get worried, but there is no need for worry as all is well!!

Adam completed his radiation with no adverse side effects Tuesday, May 26th, and as it looks right now he will be chemo and radiation free!  He will have more scans, blood work, and test sometime in the end of June, but at least for the summer he will not have to undergo anymore chemo or radiation.  From all the preliminary signs it loos like all the prayers have worked and his cancer is under control and no longer a threat.  The spots are either gone or calcified and the doctors feel that once the radiation has time to do what it needs to do, he should be completed with treatment and just have his follow ups. He even has a growth of "peach fuzz" on his entire head where his hair is already growing back.  We are all wondering just what color it will come back as...

Adam, his mother and I and our entire family are forever grateful for all of you that have prayed and kept up with Adam and given us words of hope and encouragement.  

I promise to continue to give you updates and his progress, but I am sure they will be not as often.  You can also check out his facebook page, or mine and keep in contact with us through FB.

Thanks again, and thanks to God!

Histo What?

The preliminary results are in from all of Adam's scans last monday, and overall it was good news. The masses and tumors have shrunk somewhat, as to the amount they are unable to give us an estimate due to some other things and infections going on in his lungs. Apparently he has early stages of pneumonia and are treating him with some pretty strong antibiotic (Zetromiacin), and hopefully this will clear up within a couple more days or at least by the time he is dismissed from the hospital on Saturday evening.

The other situation "clouding" his scans is something called Histoplasmosis, which we have heard reference to early on in his diagnosis. Histoplasmosis is very common in our area of the country and probably 80% of the population have some form of it, however it is not commonly active. Apparently due to the chemotherapy and due to Adam's decreased immune system, the histoplasmosis has become active. Unfortunately they can not treat this while he is undergoing chemo as one of the chemo drugs and the medicine used to treat the Histo react "volatile" together, so once he is finished with this round of chemo they will treat the histo.

Overall he is doing well, just really sleepy again this time with the chemo. I think it is due to the drugs of course. He has also stated for one of the very few times since his fight with Hodgkin's, that he doesn't feel very good. This is to be expected, but he very rarely will say anything if he is feeling bad. But if all these things are going on inside of him, it is very understandable as to why he is not feeling very well.

He has one more scheduled chemo session at the end of March and then he will be scanned and tested again prior to his radiation. He has a preliminary schedule set for his "markings" for the radiation in April. So the next step in his fight will be soon upon him.

1/3 of the Way

Well, chemo session #3 is completed. Two days in and back home. So far Adam seems to be tolerating the new drugs very well, but the real test comes later in the week and once we see his labs. So far though his counts have been good and there is no reason to think that this new set of drugs are going to cause him to react any differently.

We met with the radiation doctors and they explained what type of treatments they will be administering once the chemo is completed. He will have 2-3 weeks of radiation, every day, Monday thru Friday, for about 15 minutes each day. Now he will not actually be under the radiation for that amount of time, but those are about how long the sessions are. They are going to be localizing the radiation in the neck, chest and lung areas. This could pose problems for him in the future as they are going to be close to the heart. However any long lasting effects are minimal, but he could possibly acquire heart disease at an earlier age. It is a very minimal chance, but it is there.

He will have three more sessions of chemotherapy, and then 3-4 weeks after those are completed he will begin the radiation therapy. Then, if all is well he will be completed with the treatment phase, and will move into the follow up phase.

Things seem to be moving along at a good pace, and the treatments are working. There is a light at the end of this tunnel.

Home Again

Well not exactly, but home with Dad. Adam was dismissed from the hospital today after a battle with his PICC line. They (they being the nurses) normally just pull these out with no problem, however Adam's vein spasmed and caused it to clamp down on the catheter, which in turn caused the line to get stuck! OUCH!

So after several hours of warm compresses to allow the vein to expand the picc line was fully removed and discharge from the hospital was inevitable.

The second session of chemo went rather well. Very little if no nausea and he seems to tolerate it very well. Expect for draining him of energy, he is doing very well. The port site looks great. As his nurse said it was a "text book" procedure. He seems to also be tolerating it very well as well. Very little pain is associated with it. He says it feels as though his muscles are sore like he has been working out.

He actually has gained a little weight, and has even grown a little.

Adam started the New Year off here at dads and will go home on Sunday.

Port-a-Cath

Adam's second session of Chemo started today. This is a four hour process the first day, as several different drugs are put into his body intravenously. Prior to today he had what was called a PICC for this process. A PICC is a catheter implanted into the vein of the arm and into the Superior Vena Cava, which is...well here is a picture:

This morning however, a new catheter was implanted. This one is called a Port-a-Cath. It is a port that is placed just under the skin that has a catheter feed through the superior vena cava directly. This port is closed when not in use, and then is opened or "accessed" when in use. It is much more convenient to the patient. If having a plastic tube running from your chest into you heart cavity which allows chemicals to be pushed through your body is convenient. But this is what is making our son better, so whatever it takes, and however it can be more convenient, both he and his mother and I are all for it.

The actual procedure only takes about 30-40 minutes, but he was put under anesthesia, so we needed to wait for him to "recover" before he was taken back to his room.

The chemo was just started a few minutes ago, so this will be a long night, but Adam is sleeping, which is good.

What a Difference a Day Makes

Today is the third and last day of the first round of chemo. Unfortunately it did not go as well as last night. Adam became nauseous around 1:00 and began to get sick. They gave him the anti-nausea medication, however it put him out. He slept from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. He did sleep through his entire chemo regimen though and did not get sick, as he was asleep

When he did awake, he was still somewhat nauseous and was unable to eat anything. Finally he had to take another type of anti-nausea medicine which made him feel better and he was able to eat. Then it was time to take his prednisone, which is what caused the nausea earlier. He took each pill then chased it with ice cold Mt. Dew and then a tic tac. This worked! However when I left at around 11:00 he was complaining of nausea again. Let's hope he makes it through the night. Because if not, the Dr. said he would not be going home tomorrow if that was the case.

The steriods are already starting to make him swell a little, and he is also getting a ton of fluids being pumped into him, so his face is beginning to fill out. Also there was some hair on his pillow tonight, which means he will probably lose his hair. He didn't seem too upset about it though, he just said he may as well get out the razor and shave it off.

Hopefully he will make it thorugh the night without any other complications and will be on his way home tomorrow evening. The first journey of his battle is almost completed. Now we have about 12 months of treatment still ahead of us.

Second Day of Chemo

All in all the second day of chemo went very well. Adam is involved in a clinical study with his chemo, it is Response Based Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy for children with newly diagnosed Hodgkin Disease. What this means is that Adam, along with about 85-120 other children in the Cincinnati area will take part in the study with 1700 others across the country. The therapy is based upon the response, so if Adam responds quickly a certain protocol will be followed and if he responds slower, then a different protocol will be followed. Ultimately the same results should be the final result and that is for the patient to be cancer-free, hopefully with using little or no radiation.

Adam is taking several drugs into his system. Most of them are intravenous, however the steroids are by mouth. Along with the chemo and the steroids, he also is on anti-nausea medicine. Tonight he did become a little nauseous and was given the anti-nausea med. This made him really loopy. Most people that know Adam, know he is kind of quiet and laid back. With this drug he was completely opposite. We are not complaining though, as he had no nausea.

One of the chemotherapy drugs is a bright red. It takes about 45 minutes to go through the IV and into Adam's system. As you know everything that goes in, must come out, right? Well the remnants of this drug comes out in his urine. Which made his urine a hot pink color. He thought this was hilarious and had his sister take a picture of it (as he has to keep his urine for intake-outtake purposes) and put it on the blog. So here it is....yes, Adam's chemo induced urine. I am sure you are all excited!

Hey, I am happy that he is looking at this in an upbeat manner. I think this is what is going to get him through it.

I left around 11p.m. and Adam and Sarah were still awake and enjoying one anothers company. Hopefully his nausea will continue to not be a problem and he can get through this first batch of chemo with little or no side effects.

Day 11 - First Chemotherapy

Well, we started the day as we normally do with vitals. Thank God that everything there is going well. Today is the Jones family Christmas and we have had a couple of calls from everyone there. Glen and Lois are supposed to stop by on their way back home. Bill is here with us today. Mike is at home because he is running a low-grade temp. He's on antibiotics and should be back here tomorrow.

All in all, it's been a pretty quiet day. Adam has watched movies and we are watching the 2nd season of Friends. Glen, Lois, and Lucille came and brought some food from the get-together. While they were here, Adam started getting the chemo. Overall, he did really well. Some of the medicines run through pretty quickly while others take longer (more than an hour because of the size of the catheter that they have to run through.) He's taking a good size amount of Prednisone and he has to do a mouth swish and mouth wash. He had been doing really well, not nauseated until he took the prednisone. He said that it tasted bad. He did his mouth swish then and got sick. Just once. The nurse brought in some phenergan (sp) and gave it to him via his IV. He then went off to sleep.

I just hope for Adam's sake that this runs smoothly. He is getting grumpy but with everything that he's gone through he has just accepted it and gone on. The prednisone can cause mood swings and crankiness. I've asked him what I can do to help him. All I can do is be here when he wants me and do the things that he needs. He needs all the support that he can get from all of us.

Day 10 and Some Good News!

We received some good news today. The doctors are not going to be removing the diseased lung, or a biopsy at this time. They are going to start chemotherapy on Saturday. They feel that after two rounds of chemo and possibly a round of radiation, the tumor in the lung should decrease in size. The smaller nodules should also decrease. Once the two rounds of chemo are completed they will then do more tests to determine the results the chemo had, and at that time if they feel the treatments are not working they will then take more more invasive option of surgical removal.

This is good news to Adam, as he was NOT looking forward to surgery. I do not think the doctors wanted to really do surgery either as they need to keep him strong for the chemo. So tomorrow the first treatment of chemotherapy will begin. The protocol will be three days of chemo, then possibly home on the fourth day. Return for tests on the eighth day and then the second round of chemo will take place 21 days after the last. So according to my calendar, the 2nd round of chemo should take place around the 30th or 31st of December. So it looks like Christmas will be spared any trips to the hospital!

I have been sick for a couple days myself, a really bad cold and sore throat, so I did not go to the hospital today, but I will be there tomorrow, with a mask on, as I know he is going to need us there.

You can give you well wishes via leaving a comment on any blog post or you can email Adam directly at atw1993@gmail.com I know he would appreciate your comments.