Home Again After the First Mid-treatment MRI

Cam’s fever cleared up early Sunday morning; his medical team ran cultures and x-rayed his lungs but didn’t find an infection so he was cleared for discharge as soon as his blood counts recovered. Yesterday, Cam has his first MRI since starting chemo. The great news is that the MRI showed that the chemo is working. His remaining disease has shrunk and in some places disappeared. We still have a long way to go but this is an awesome first step. The bad news is he has more cranio-spinal fluid building up, which means that the shunt that Stanford inserted to help him regulate the fluid is not working. The neurosurgical team adjusted the settings after his MRI so hopefully that works. If it doesn’t he’ll need another surgery to fix or replace it. while Cam was sedated, his ophthalmologist gave his right eye Botox injections (in case you couldn’t tell from photos, Cam‘s tumor blocked the blood flow to the nerve in his right eye and the eye became misaligned which is what prompted us to take him to the pediatrician for the third time and get the MRI where the doctors originally found the tumors). The eye should heal on its own over time, but he’s been having double vision so the team wanted to give him Botox to help hasten the recovery. Who knew Botox was so versatile! Cam’s counts recovered yesterday so as soon as he woke up from the MRI we were discharged. He will be readmitted next week for his stem cell collection and to start chemo round three. See above for a photo of Vincent Van Gogh/Mike prepping to go with Cam into the OR for Botox and the MRI.