Hi, Everyone! Ethan was finally discharged from the hospital last night around 8:00 pm. During the stem cell collection, he developed a fever, so Hotel INOVA extended our invitation to stay. We’re administering Vancomycin at home, thanks to the good people at Home IV Care who delivered our supplies from Richmond at midnight last night so that we could get his next dose in at 6:00 am. They’ve turned out to be the greatest bunch of people to have helping you in situations like this! Their willingness to endure the 2-hour drive one-way (probably longer in Friday night traffic...) with very little notice made it possible for us to sleep in our own beds last night.
The stem cell collection process was even more involved than I expected. In fact, here’s a riddle for you: How many doctors, nurses and family members do you have to have crammed into a small hospital room before the laws of statistical probability indicate that 4 of them would be named Kim?? I’ll leave the hard math up to our talented Engineers at Veridian, but for the rest of us... let’s just say that there were A LOT!!
The stem cell rescue itself was a rousing success! Our target for collection was 5-6 million stem cells, but we ended up with 19.5 million during the first session alone. It was a relief to remove the pheresis catheter, although I wish I wouldn’t have watched. It was HUGE and positioned in the most unfortunate of places. As it turned out, to say it was placed in his leg was a stretch. Ethan did not fall asleep until the last ½ hour, but he tolerated the procedure better than I expected.
During our stay, we obtained another follow-up MRI. Ethan’s Neurosurgeon, Dr. Magram, stopped by after reading the slides and said we couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. The post-op MRI from 2 months ago is identical to yesterdays ~ meaning nothing has grown!! Both MRIs show a teeny-tiny white spot in the middle of his tumor bed, but Dr. Magram feels strongly that it is a vein. During our next round of imaging, we’ll add an MRV (Magnetic Resonance Venography) to the mix to confirm that it is only a vein.
Ethan is slowly but surely building up his own Team Ethan network at the hospital. He had most of the nurses wearing his Team Ethan tattoos by the end of the visit and even convinced Fireman Kevin to wear one on his forehead. I’m tempted to drop in for a spot-check on Kevin today to see if its still there (now that he knows Ethan’s been discharged ;-).
We were given the option of staying another night and beginning his 3rd round of chemotherapy today, or going home to enjoy the weekend and beginning instead on Monday morning. Our Doctors are VERY compassionate! Any guesses which option we chose?!? Counting (please dear God) today and tomorrow, we have enjoyed exactly 6 out of 31 uninterrupted days at home during this cycle. Everyone is really great to us at the hospital and the Doctors office, but I can’t tell you how much we all enjoy being home together.
Thanks again for everyone’s support. Please wish us better luck with round 3!
Warm Regards,
Kim, Bert, Ethan and Kyra