In the world I am living in right now radio silence can mean bad things. You can see a bubbly young little girl one day and find out the next that she is now hospitalized and not expected to make it thru the night.
Luckily, my lack of post has been just the business of life this past few weeks.
During the last post, Kagan was having his PET and CAT scans to see if the cancer was gone. Unfortunately, the results of those test did not come back as positive as we had hoped. The chemo had been successful to shrink the cancer but for some reason the cancer was not gone and it had now invaded the thyroid. It is still small amounts of cancer (about 1/4 of what he started with) that are present but it can grow so quickly and for me ANY cancer is TOO MUCH CANCER.
So, we have to be more aggressive and Kagan has to fight this thing a little longer.
Last Friday, Kagan had his neck operated on again! This is the forth procedure on that ugly culprit but I am happy to say that is GONE! No more bumpy on the side of the neck. There is a scar several inches long that reaches around the entire left side of his neck but I will take that over that stupid culprit poking out any day! Dr. Grissoni, as always, took really good care of Kagan.
We did find out that he will have some permanent nerve damage from the surgery. After he has healed though we are once again blessed to find that this meant a little numbness in his neck area but nothing serious.
Now, we start the road of radiation.
Dr. Calkins is her name and I really am confident in her. She made me like her even more when we showed up for our appointment yesterday and she had a broken arm. On the sling was a picture of her dog and and little index card that pointed to her dog saying "It is his fault". So cute.)
She said that both she and Dr. Panchoosing (as you know I really value his opinion and care of Kagan too) had several meetings go over Kagan's prognosis and need for radiation. After several conversations, they both felt confident that radiation would be a good next step.
Dr. Calkins explained to both Kagan and I why they are trying to stop doing radiation on children. She also explained in detail (and I mean a lot of scary details) the side effects of radiation. She about had me in a panic and then she said "But, for Kagan he will only have to have 8 treatments". Since I had prepared myself for 6 months of radiation, I am beyond happy to hear this news. She also eased Kagan's mind by saying that since he is 16 and on such a short time that he should not have any of those side effects. She shared with us that Kagan will not feel any pain, that he will not get sick that the chemo would due, his immune system will not be depleted and that he will be able maintain normalcy to his life.
So much was talked about, including his future responsibilities to keep care of his health, that I felt comforted once again that we had a doctor who was willing to talk in terms of Kagan's well being and not just the "treatment" at hand.
Next week, they will due scans and make a cast for Kagan so that all treatments are done in the exact area each time. Then we will start radiation.
We are still believing and trusting that God has a plan! No doubt about it!
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