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!

Hurry Up & Wait

Radiation was supposed to start on Thursday, April 30th, however after further investigation the doctor's decided they wanted to send off his results for further observation and screening prior to doing radiation.  One of the benefits of doing a clinical trial is that we get state of the art medicines and new ideas, but a lot of hurry up and wait.  They need to make sure all their p's and q's are in place before they advance to the next staging of treatment.

So we are not complaining, as we want to make sure everything is in order and things are done correctly, but sometimes I am sure it get aggravating for Adam.

He has started back to school full time, and hopefully this will take his mind off of things and he can get back to doing the things he likes to do.  We will update once the radiation starts.  Keep praying!

Being Marked

Adam has endured many things since his diagnoses in November. From radioactive dye for the scans, to chemo, transfusions and many many labs. However today he got to endure one more pleasantry. getting marked for radiation.

He had his initial appointment today with the radiology department at the Barrett Center at University Hospital of Cincinnati. They placed him is a machine, much like that of a CT Scan, and placed him in position according to where his tumors are located and proceeded to mark his neck and chest for the EXTERNAL BEAM RADIATION THERAPY. He thought they were actually going to use a needle with ink, similar to tattooing, but they used a sharpie...a black magic marker! I thought that was funny. So now he has these little black x's on his neck chest and belly.

He also had to have an Effimask molded today. This mask has to be worn during the treatment so that the parts of his body (Head, eyes, mouth) that are not affected by the cancer do not get radiation. This will prevent radiation burns and/or other possible damage to health cells. This process was quite interesting as well. It looked like a piece of plastic mesh that the technician placed in hot water, then put over his head, clamping it down to the table. After about ten minutes, WA LA, they had a mold of his face that they will created the mask with.

The actual treatments will begin next Thursday and will last for 10-14 days straight (Not counting weekends). So another turn in his road to recovery has begun.

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.

Hurry Up and Wait

We are currently at the hospital, in clinic waiting for our room. Adam was a scheduled admit for Chemo today, but we still have not been put in a room. We have been here since 8:15 this morning and it is now 12:30. Oh well, that is hospitals for you, hurry up and wait.

The news today is that, Adam will definitely be doing radiation, but when is up in the air at this point. It will be after his chemo sessions. right now they are say that if everything goes well, and the tumors continue to respond as well as they have, we will have this chemo session and then 3 (maybe 4) after this, then the radiation 3-4 weeks after that for a period of 3-4 weeks. So if everything goes well, he should be out of the treatment phase by October 1, 2009. Not bad. And hopefully cancer free!

Adam did receive some good news today. He is eligible for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. He wished for a car, but they could not provide that of course, but they did say a family trip to Hawaii could be granted!! YEAH. But it is his wish, and they are going to bringing by some literature later during his stay this time regarding what he can wish for. I think honestly, his wish would be for the cancer to be gone...

Good News

We received some good news on Wednesday regarding all the tests Adam underwent on Monday. It looks as though the chemo is doing what it needs to do to get Adam back to being 100% cancer free. On the majority the doctor has said that the tumors and the masses have shrunk in size from 45-55%. This is outstanding news, and we are all excited to know that all this work is accomplishing the goal.

However, today we received another call from his doctor and he stated that after looking at all the tests and the effect that the chemo has had on the cancer Adam is still going to have to undergo radiation. He said even though the disease has shrunk considerably, it has not shrunk enough for Adam to be considered a fast responder. So the chemo will continue with a couple new drugs, and then in about 3-4 months he will undergo radiation. The good news is also that no one has said anything about surgery as they had discussed before, so this is great news.

The pesky mass in and around the neck and clavicle area are the ones that have not responded as quickly as they have hoped, so even though the news is good, we need to continue to battle this as aggressively as possible. The doctors have indicated that our goal is to eradicate this disease completely and to do that we need to fight it as hard and as aggressive as possible.

So as Adam looks ahead he can be excited that what he and the doctors are doing is working. We just need to continue to work hard and fight with all we have. So to say we have good news and bad news is not really the case, because we knew going into this that radiation was probably inevitable. We do say though that this is definitely good news and as long as we see these tumors decreasing it is good news!