The plan for the week

One happy boy

Davis is fitting right in...

We spoke with our primary oncologist today. He confirmed that Carter’s bone scan was positive…meaning it just can’t be considered negative because there are the areas in question. We have read that false positives can be common for bone scans. We are hoping this is the case for Carter. The doctor said we will go ahead with the MRI on Wednesday. Unfortunately, they were not able to add the legs into the scan. This would add an additional 90 minutes to the scan, and the radiology team does not have this kind of time in their schedule (more about this later). So, the scan will just be the abdomen area.

In addition to the MRI, the doctor would like to have a biopsy done to Carter’s rib on his left side. He said it appears as almost a nodule on the bone. His left leg, where his break was, also appears this way (as they would expect with a break). So, we are hopeful there had just been a crack in the rib and the nodule is the bone repairing itself. We have to rule out everything else. This procedure will be more invasive than the bone marrow biopsy they had mentioned last week. This will involve a surgical team and Carter being put under general anesthesia. Yes, it looks like he will be put under twice within a few days. They are hoping to do the biopsy before the end of the week.

I had asked the doctor if we will be certain after these tests or if we’ll just have to wait until scanning again. He said, unfortunately, we won’t know until we rescan and we can make sure there is no growth (which he plans to do in another 6-8 weeks). He also said he will be following the AFP numbers closely to make sure there is no increase, most often indicating tumor growing. I asked what these numbers were from Friday, because UCLA had wanted to get them as well. Carter’s AFP earlier in October went from 18 to 37, and THANK GOD is back down to 16.2! The doctor is very optimistic that this is not cancer that has metastasized to Carter’s bones. He said the chemo was so successful on Carter and he’s thinking it is just osteoporosis. Matt and I need to make sure this is the case. We want this cancer completely gone before we allow ourselves to have a sigh of relief. We are still in fighting mode until we need to be.