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Andrew completed the Proton Radiation portion of his treatment the first week in January. He handled this part of it very well. We moved them back Michigan along with his haul from Santa. I can't believe the number of toys he received. Also, the number of cards and letters from so many people we don't even know.
After a double round trip of over 1,700 miles in less than an 80 hour time frame, the old man was about worn out. During the last trip up to Michigan, one of Andrew's toys mysteriously started talking. After a couple of hours of that, we stopped and re-packed the back seat of the car.
Andrew was scheduled to start back at the Mott Children's Hospital last week and my daughter-in-law was dreading that. With the chemo treatments they are hospitalized for most of the week and the following week Andrew is usually a pretty sick little boy.
They performed a GFR test on Monday to test his kidney functions. In order to do this they have to insert a peripheral IV and insert a radioactive tracer and Andrew isn't very fond of this procedure. Needless to say the technician who was performing this was looking away and squirted it on Andrew and another technician burning both of them. That made the test invalid and it couldn't be completed.
Tuesday they were scheduled to start the next round of chemo and they show up and didn't have the correct protocol and his name incorrect. They asked my daughter-in-law if she knew the protocol? After finally getting that corrected they hooked him up for the 72 hour version. On Wednesday afternoon the port started leaking and they had to stop the chemo treatment. He ended up with a burn on his stomach and they had run additional tests to check the port.
To say that the hospital staff had a bad week would be an understatement. Andrew seemed to come through all of this unfazed which is more than I can say for the rest of us. He will continue to receive chemo approximately every three weeks through October. The next big test will be the MRI on February 14th. That will show how the tumor is responding to the treatment protocol that they have chosen.
I will end this update by thanking you all very much for all of the cards, letters, toys, well wishes and prayers. Our family is very humbled by the outpouring of love for Andrew. His journey continues and we appreciate your interest.
Mike
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