and then it was april...

after that early march flurry of fun, the fourth round of chemo took place on march 10, 11 and 12; for the first time we did it all 'out-patient' at dana farber, instead of being admitted as an overnight patient at children's hospital. staying with our friends the elmans in cambridge, it was so much more pleasant than bunking in at the hospital. logan much prefers lee's cooking to 'room service' any day.

The subsequent 3 weeks have been all about staying strong and building up stem cell growth with daily shots in the stomach of leukine (aka sargramostim, or gm-cf). As described before, the leukine stimulates the bone marrow, boosting the production of stem cells, which are then harvested and saved for recovery after super chemo in may and june. that harvest which i was so happy to report about in february actually yielded very few usable stem cells. apparently, the harvest had been premature, so we've had the last 3 weeks in preparation to attempt another harvest.

for some inexplicable reason, logan has needed 4 blood transfusions and 4 platelet infusions since the last chemo. the previous 2 rounds had only required one set of blood transfusion/platelet infusion each. they tell us this is not unusual; the affect of the bone marrow being weakened is accumulative. while we have spent alot of time driving back and forth to boston and doing outpatient visits to remedy these chronic low blood counts, i look to the silver lining that the cancer must likewise be experiencing accumulative regression.

logan has had a good run of tutor visits, and inches closer to finishing his freshman history project. his topic? medieval medicine. given the rudimentary procedures and dismal success rates of medicine in the 6th through 15th centuries, we can agree we are very fortunate to have the medical wonders we have seen in the last few months!

on march 28, logan and i met with the pediatric oncology surgeon who will remove the primary tumor. we saw the latest CT scan, which showed further dramatic shrinkage of both the primary tumor and the secondary one underneath the clavicle. dr. weldon had plenty of sobering information and detailed what was involved in the day-long surgery, now scheduled for april 8. the tumor is basically wrapped around logan's aorta, at a point where numerous smaller arteries branch off to individual organs and bifurcate to supply blood to each leg. this is where the surgical team will set up camp for about 7 hours, carefully shaving away every last bit of tumor, all the while protecting these primary blood vessels from damage. he managed to sound upbeat and optimistic, and ended on a happy note that he has seen many tumors which had not shrunk by quite so much after 4 rounds of chemo. how can one not look forward to getting operated on by him?!

in this past week my mother passed away, and logan, clemmy and i will travel to st. louis this weekend for the funeral. when we return sunday, we will stay in boston in preparation for surgery. monday will be spent in pheresis, harvesting stem cells, and we hope for a bumper crop. over the last few weeks, days have flown by. while we were certainly busy with critical procedures and intricate coordination of logistical challenges, somehow i couldn't find the time to sit down and write about it. logan appreciates very much when people take the time to write, or call, and we promise to write again with news of the surgery.