Travis was doing OK today!  Tuesdays are our harder days with appointments scheduled as early as 7am in addition to the daily Proton Therapy.  He had his second round of chemo so that means only 4 more to go during his radiation treatment.  This chemo, Vincristine, is used to supplement his radiation treatment.  He will still have to have the full chemotherapy when he returns home but we won’t worry about that now since there are so many other steps between now and then.  We had our weekly appointment with the Neuro-Oncologist and he said that the symptoms Travis is having (sore jaw, sore back, fatigue and occasional stomach pain) can be attributed to the chemo and radiation treatment.  During our weekly appointments, they also do lab work and all looks to be normal which is a good sign during treatment.  The doctor discussed the latest rounds of MRIs that were done to a higher resolution just prior to treatment.  They are using this data and imaging to help formulate the overall treatment plan.  Even though they are treating the entire cranial/spinal areas for 4 weeks, they will go back and “boost” certain areas for the last 2 weeks.  The areas they will focus on then will be the tumor bed (area where the tumor was removed) and a slight anomaly on the spine to be sure nothing grows back.  Although the MRI does not show any tumors on the spine and the lumbar puncture (spinal tap) came back negative for cancer cells, there is an area on the spine between the S1 and S2 vertebrae showing a slight anomaly during imaging so they want to be cautious in their treatment.  We have to keep reminding ourselves that we have a very good starting point in that things were caught early and the surgery went really well.  There are many patients being treated with the same type of therapy who were inoperable and they are trying to reduce or halt the actual tumor growth with radiation/chemotherapy alone and without surgery.  Little silver linings!

On the way back home Travis wanted to stop for a Sonic Chili-Cheese Dog.  Whatever sounds good to him at this point is what we are going for.  He thought it was the best thing ever and almost the whole thing.  He worked on his school work in the afternoon so we should have a pretty good size packet to return to school by Friday.  The General Manager of the hotel stopped by in the afternoon to check on Travis and see if there is anything that we need.  All of the staff knows him and will say “Hi Travis.”  They always ask how he is doing or what he is up to and try to make us feel at home.  It really helps having all of their support here.  For dinner they had BBQ brisket downstairs and Travis couldn’t wait to get down there.  That is a good sign and we are thankful for that!

Thanks,

Lynne and Tony