Battling Uphill

Henry finished his first week of the latest radiation treatments last Friday. He seems to be feeling few side affects: mild fatigue and the requisite nausea (no actual vomiting).

We spoke with Dr. G at Duke and decided to start a Tarceva regimen. Tarceva, originally a lung and pancreatic cancer medication, has started being used in some pediatric head and brain cancers. It has few and mild side effects, and should not interfere with the radiation treatments.
We feel it's best to use this time as pro-actively as possible and not wait for radiation to be over before we at least make an effort to treat the systemic source of this disease.

This imperative became more obvious as Henry started feeling some lower back pain in the same place he had last fall - the same place we just finished treating. Our radiation oncologist was puzzled, as the recent MRIs appeared to show the area clear. He was going to meet late Friday with the radiologist to review the MRI to see if there is anything hiding in there. We haven't heard back from them yet; It probably got too late into Friday night. But, in the words of one of our many doctors, pain is worrisome.

On the good news front, despite the difficult circumstances and sporadic attendance, Henry got straight A's on his report card. There were a few teachers who could not give him a grade since he couldn't get enough work turned in, but once again Henry proved he can hold his own under the most challenging of circumstances.

He really is an amazing kid.