It was nice to have the long weekend at home to rest up and start preparing for the next part of our journey.  Our doctors have recommended that Travis take this week off from school so that he can continue building his strength back up after the radiation therapy.  So, we are planning to have him start back on Monday so that he can finish out the last 3 weeks of school with his friends.  Most likely, we will stop by this week to say hi to everyone and let them know that Travis is doing ok.

Many people have been asking about what happens next as far as Travis’ treatment goes.  We are being told that the Chemotherapy phase will begin in 4-6 weeks depending on how Travis is progressing after radiation.  We have weekly appointments set up starting this week so that we can synch back up with our doctors here and they can monitor his counts through lab work.  Travis was kind of bummed by that news since we thought he was going to have a break from having his port accessed for a little while.  They will also schedule a post-radiation follow up MRI around the end of June to double check the radiation results.  They need to wait about 4 weeks after his treatment was complete to allow for any swelling or inflammation to go down.  We will keep our fingers crossed for that one!

As for the Chemotherapy treatment, we should find out more detailed information in the coming weeks ahead.  But they gave us a general outline that would look something like the following:

There will be six, 28 day cycles of treatment or 6 months total.

Each 28 day cycle will start with 3 days as inpatient in the hospital to receive the chemotherapy treatment, monitor his counts and keep any potential infections to a minimum.

After that, he will be allowed to go home assuming everything is ok.

On the 8^th day, he will come back to the hospital as an outpatient to receive a chemotherapy boost.

Then he will be done for the rest of the 28 days.

So even though we know it will not be easy, again, we will just have to take things one step at a time so that he can battle through.  At least we will all be in San Diego County and we have so much support here to face things together.

Did we mention that it is good to be home?

Thanks,

Tony and Lynne