Thoughts

When I returned home last night from meeting my mother-in-law at the park-n-ride, I transferred both sleeping Levi and Asher into the house and spent some time folding laundry.  It made me realize how much I missed Jude when I had to see his little clothes without him in them.  It reminded me of something he told me recently when I was at work, “Mommy I was missing you today.  I saw your coat and you weren’t in it and it made me miss you.”  I was excited when Levi, Asher and I got to speak on Facetime with Andy and Jude.  It was great to see them. 

Jude and Andy seem to really like Jill’s House, the place I found us to stay in Indiana.  There were other kids running around in the background of the video feed.  He made friends within minutes with a little, bald 6-year old girl named Isabella who must be receiving both chemotherapy and proton radiation treatment.  Jude lives to play with other kids so he’ll have a blast. 

Today is a consultation with the radiation doctor in Indiana.  He has lost a lot of my confidence since he has acted more like a salesman than a doctor thus far in consulting with him.  I plan to tell him over the phone what Mayo said about the side effects of radiation and then say something like, “Now that you have had the chance to review Jude’s scans, what can you tell me about the side effects we can expect?”  That will give him an opportunity to fess up without feeling like his back is really up against the wall. 

Jude will also be anesthesized today for a CT scan and mask fitting/proton radiation simulation.

Later this week, unless I’ve taken Jude for a run to the hills, he will have a port placed in his chest that will stay in for 7+ weeks to administer his daily anesthesia for the radiation treatments.  The port will allow him to be poked only on Mondays and the needle will stay in all week and then be removed on Fridays.

I’m thankful that St. Judes is taking a look at the tissue to see if we can predict the tumor’s behavior, but disappointed in the last minute timing of the review, especially since my sister asked our oncologist a month ago if the tumor had been so tested and was told no one was doing such testing.  I’m glad we found the contrary, but wish we already had this information. 

I received the histology images yesterday and had my sister look at them since she teaches histology at NDSU.  One of the histology images showed a mitotic (dividing) cell- a feature that makes it more like a Grade III.  It will be interesting to hear what St. Judes has to say.