Wed, 28 Jul 1999 20:46

Tumor is back

Some of you already know about some of this.

There was a questionable area on Logan's regularly scheduled MRI last week, so he had a PET scan done yesterday. The PET scan confirmed that his tumor is growing back. The oncologist said that the current chemotherapy is obviously not working, so he is suggesting a more aggressive plan. In the short term, they will be operating next Wednesday, August 4, to remove what they can of the new tumor, and to confirm for 100% sure that the tissue is indeed tumor regrowth, since we don't want to take the more aggressive path unless it is absolutely necessary. If the biopsy shows that the tissue is not tumor, he will continue on his current chemo schedule. Otherwise, we have been presented with a choice between two plans.

1. Generalized radiation to the brain and spine, followed by localized radiation to the tumor area. This is somewhat "easier", physically speaking, because Logan will not have to be an inpatient. It also has a slightly better success rate. Statistics are pretty meaningless for individual cases, and we don't have faith in numbers, but just for reference the oncologist quoted about 50% for this method. I don't know if that is a one-year or five-year survival rate. Laura would be taking him in for daily radiation treatments, for a few weeks or maybe months. The drawback is that the generalized radiation will damage much of his "good" brain, causing growth problems and learning disability/retardation. Radiation is a "normal" treatment for brain cancer in older patients, but they have been avoiding it for Logan since his brain is still growing.

2. High-dose chemotherapy for two months, bone marrow extraction, then super-high-dose chemotherapy requiring bone-marrow rescue (transplant from self), followed by localized radiation to the tumor area. The high-dose chemo is similar to his current schedule, except higher doses of the same drugs. He would be an inpatient for three to four days per month, then home the rest of the month. After two months of that, they would extract bone marrow from his hip-bone, for use later as a "rescue" after they give him a near-deadly dose of chemo. He would be an inpatient for two to three weeks. The oncologist indicated that many patients die from the treatment rather than from the cancer. For reference, his number here was 40% survival rate.

The oncologist seems to favor option 2, so that is the direction we will go by default if we don't actively pursue option 1. Laura favors option 2 also. Knocker doesn't have a strong opinion, but is more likely to at least consider option 1, since it seems less painful for Logan (in the short term, who knows long term), and human intelligence does not determine happiness, nor is it the basis for a relationship with the Lord Jesus. "...the world through its wisdom does not know God..." (1 Corinthians 1:21). We have really treasured simply the relationship that we have had with Logan these past few months. We love him whether he knows his multiplication tables or not. Anyway, we will probably go with option 2.

If anybody has any thoughts, comments, suggestions, feel free to share. This may be more detail than you were interested in. Just writing it all down is therapeutic for me (Knocker). Thanks for listening.

Thank you to everyone for your prayers. Logan looks so good these days, it's hard to believe he's sick. Laura has done a great job of keeping his weight up (by sneaking him vitamins, and cake). He is very active, playing and laughing (and fighting) a lot with his brother. When he and Adam are getting along, he calls him "Adam." When he's mad at Adam, he calls him "brudder."