Gladiator

The big man absolutely crushed it today, and this whole round. He dominated the chemo - first time he did not run a fever, and his counts passed their threshold 3 days earlier than the last high dose round. However, hydrocephalus continued to be his biggest adversary. After a great couple of weeks, hydrocephalus took the better of him last Saturday and continued to rob him of a clean round. He had his 6th surgery today, where they explored the catheter in his brain and body and replaced the shunt valve in his head. It was an extremely stressful, but successful surgery. With everything that’s gone wrong, it’s good to have a win. They found an obstruction in his body catheter (the least risky to rip and replace). They replaced his body catheter as well as the valve, but did not need to do anything to the catheter in his brain. No need to discuss the other options we would have had to decide to pursue if the obstruction did not present itself (huge sigh of relief from mom and dad).

At this point, his counts are good enough for him to go home, but we’ll be recovering from this surgery over the weekend. Our hope is to be home on Monday or Tuesday and have the most thankful Thanksgiving...spending it together as a whole family.