The Logan Update: 1/5/2011

We're back to the same old-same old routine that we've grown to know over the course of the past 4.5 months: Logan and Adam at CHO, me at home with the other kids. Of course, things are a little more challenging on the homefront with Brady on the scene, but I manage.

Adam and I took him back to the hospital yesterday to begin round 5. Logan wasn't thrilled to be checking in again, but took the news with as much of a grain of salt as a 4-year old who's spent the majority of the past 5 months living in a hospital can take it. There was minimal complaining, and much sadness when the time came for me to head home. But I'm getting ahead of myself, as I usually do.

Philippa (who jokingly called herself my personal concierge, after Adam repeated my usual request that she try to start him out in the immunocompromised ward, if possible) successfully secured him a room in 5South and said we should aim to check in at 1. Logan chose Arbys for his final meal before the loss of his freedom, so we obliged. We headed to CHO and checked in more or less on time, though the room wasn't yet ready so we headed to the playroom for a few minutes while we waited.

He was pleased to see Molly again. He'd brought a bag of chocolate chip cookies to share with her and his doctors and nurses (though in reality, I'm pretty sure he intended that they be just for Molly!). It made me smile inside to watch him troll around, bag in hand, looking for her so he could share the treats. His check-in weight was a robust 16.8 kilos, up .8 from his official weight at the start of cycle 4.

All of his bloodwork and his creatnine clearance came back looking good, so Adam said he started the chemo at about 8 last (Tuesday) night. So for now, it's just a matter of finishing the round of drugs, clearing the methotrexate, and praying like the dickens that this last regular cycle will wipe out the rest of the tumor residuals so we can skip another surgery and go straight to transplant.

Tomorrow will bring a meeting with Dr. T, who we gather wants to explain what happened with the botched MRI read. Everyone we talked with yesterday was very concerned and confused over what had happened, including the on-call doc of the week, Dr. W. In reality, I think the hospital staff probably thinks we're more upset over what happened than we actually are; we're just so glad that not-as-great news morphed into good news that we don't really care much about the week of worry in between. Yes, it's always disturbing when there's a mistake made and it's upsetting to feel unnecessary strife, but everyone makes mistakes. So we're trying not to dwell. (And we'll have an explanation from Dr T soon enough anyway.)

Okay, well, I have more to say, but it's late and Brady has apparently decided that right now is a good time to scream his head off. Please continue to pray for Logan's complete healing and for protection against relapse over the course of the next few years. I'm trying to do better with prayer myself; I'm finding that it's true for me that when things are going well, I tend to forget to bring things to the Lord on a regular basis.

So off I go to cope with young Brady and to pray. Good night and my thanks to you all.