Last Day of Radiation -- COMPLETE!!

Finally! We're done with radiation. We made chocolate chip cookies to take to the center to celebrate. The staff & other kids loved them. Everyone was sad to see Caleb go. He has always been so loving & sharing. He's the one who came up with the idea for the "snack swap" with the other kids. He's made so many people smile & laugh while he's been there.  Wednesday while getting set for his treatment, he heard "Holly Jolly Christmas" on the music player in the radiation room.  He misunderstood a phrase in it and said, "Ho, ho, the missing toe!?" We all had a good laugh at that one. Dr. Murphy said he'll never be able to listen to that song again without thinking of Caleb. Richard said the nurses were taking pictures of him and asking how they can keep up with what's going on during the rest of his treatment, so ... "Welcome to the blog, UTSW!"

In other "Clinic Day" news, all the doctors seem to agree that Caleb's slight setback was a result of possible swelling of the tumor due to the radiation treatment itself.  Since he seems to have stabilized and is improving again, they want to keep him at the same level for the steroids for a couple more weeks to make sure any swelling of the tumor has stopped before reducing the steroids again.

They have also changed the date of Caleb's next MRI. It is now scheduled for January 11, 2011, at 7:30am. We'll have to be there at 6:30am for admitting.  I know that seems like a long time to wait to see what's going on, but the doctors believe it will give us a more accurate picture of what's happening with the tumor. That amount of time should give any swelling time to subside.  We'll wait with great anticipation of them saying, "Tumor? What tumor? There's no tumor anywhere in this child."

Caleb also had his follow-up appointment with the cardiologist about the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (thick heart) issue.  After our last visit, they had Caleb wear a Holter Monitor overnight to make sure there no additional problems.  We were told we'd have the results within one week. We never heard back from them. We assumed that "no news is good news" because if he had a serious condition, they'd surely call.  Well, they did another echocardiogram on Caleb. When the results came back, the doctors were a little stumped.  Apparently, the leaking hole he had in his heart is no longer leaking and they can't even find where it was! Their exact words were, "We can't explain why it's not leaking anymore."  (But, WE can!!!)  They also said that they would have expected his heart to have thickened some more since the last visit. Not only has it not thickened any more, but it also appears to have gotten better!!!! OUR GOD IS AWESOME!!!!! All thanks and praise belong to Him!