February 23, 2006

First of all, thank you for the many prayers for Leah. We have received numerous emails from people letting us know that Leah has been in their prayers for good CT scan results.

Our day began at 4 AM when we arose to pack and get ready for our Iowa City trip. We wer eon the road by 4:45 AM and in Iowa City a little before 7. Leah had to have her port accessed on 7th floor. Unfortunately the first attempt did not work, so Leah had to be re-poked. This did not go over very well. Port accessing is always traumatic, but Leah screamed that it hurt when they tried to flush it and I am sure she was not making it up this time. Kristi was downstairs on a different floor and came up to access her. This time it worked fine and had instant blood return. From there we went to CT scan where we were to have a 7:15 appointment with the radiologist and anesthetist. However, that did not happen until 8:30. That appointment lasted just minutes and we were on our way to CT. They now put Leah to sleep with a mask and then give her contrast via an NG tube. This is how she has had her last 3 scans. I always find it traumatic to hold her while they hold the mask over her face. I know she is scared of this procedure, but also know she cannot have a CT scan while conscious because that is far scarier to her. Chris and I waited outside the room for about 45 minutes before they were finished and then went to recovery with her. Unfortunately they discovered she had a fever in recovery, and this means an automatic admission to the hospital.

So off we went to 7th floor. This was definitely not what we had planned and I ran to Wal-Mart to get some things for Chris who is staying the night. Around 2:30 Dr. Rahdi came to see me while Chris was at the library and talked about how much weight Leah has gained, how her fever is not unusual after a CT scan, and then casually says that Leah's scan looks better and goes on to another topic. Here I have been focused on that for days and it barely gets a mention. So, I had him back up and we went over this in greater detail. Her scan shows another 25% shrinkage. On January 23 her tumor measured 8.4x7.7x8.4 cm. Now it measures 7.7x7.1x6.6 cm. They will be meeting with the surgeons to get their feelings on resection. It is less involved in the blood vessels and that, too, is a good sign. However, Dr. Rahdi said we could do Round 5 and that is not a bad thing, either. Obviously we want the tumor to be as small as possible so resection is successful, and if another round of chemo. will shrink it more then we may do that. Dr. Rahdi also asked if I had been following the AFP numbers. I found this an odd question because after it continued to go up for 3 weeks in a row it was never shared with us again. Strangely enough the AFP went down before the last round of chemo. was started. That indicates that they may never changed chemos. had they known it was going down (obviously after 3 weeks of rising, though, it could not be ignored). They have no reason to give for its rise and fall, except that they normally do not check it so often, and perhaps this is the normal course.

We still have a long, long road ahead. However, we are thankful for the good news we received today and believe that God is listening to the thousands of prayers said each day for Leah.
We are hopeful she will be sent home within a day or two, yet a hospital stay after good news is much easier to take than in some other instances.

Chloe must get to bed because I am working tomorrow before heading back to Iowa City. She has been a patient lap-sitter while I type, but I doubt it will last long. Please continue to keep Leah in your prayers.