YEAH for pain meds!

Carter munching on Pirate's Booty

Rockin' out!

Grandpa and the infamous DJ Lance hat...

Pediasure + Ice Cream + Supplements = Delicious!

Carter slept in until 7am this morning, and everyone woke up well-rested. He did seem in pain and irritable, so we gave him pain meds around 8:30am. Boy, what a difference! It was the best morning we’ve had in a long time. Carter was (literally) running around and had so much energy, as a toddler should. And because he had so much more energy being exerted, he was snacking more here and there. He sat and read a book by himself for about 15 minutes, which was like the old Carter…very independent. We could tell when the pain meds started wearing off after about three hours, and continued them every four hours (as directed) throughout the rest of the day. We are slowly, but surely, figuring out what we need to do to make this awful experience as comfortable for Carter as possible.

Mom had an OB appointment today, which had been pushed off for the past couple of weeks. And everything looks great with Baby Brother-On-The-Way. We can cross that one off the list for the next month, and focus our energy on Carter.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day. We are headed up to UCLA at 6:30am for an MRI for Carter. This is something the liver transplant team had discussed with us last week. They need to make sure Carter’s tumor is not in the blood vessels going into the liver. If the tumor was in the blood vessels, it would most likely go straight to a transplant case. Obviously, we are still hoping the tumor can be resected at some point, and avoid a transplant. Carter will be put under for the hour long scan, and they’ll have to inject him with a dye. Unfortunately, they do not put this into the Broviac, so Carter will have to endure a couple of pokes tomorrow. After the scan, the images will be uploaded to the surgeons to review. Then, we are scheduled to meet with them at 1:00pm to discuss the results and their thoughts on Carter’s tumor. It should be an insightful day, with hopefully good news that the tumor is not in the blood vessels!