Judah’s first chemo is this morning. Please pray that is all goes smoothly, that he has little side effects. Pray that he isn’t scared.
He will have blood draws at 7:45 then meeting with the dr at 8:00 then chemo from 9-11.
Thanks for the prayer support! Love you all.
Judah got a little sick in the middle of the treatment but was ok by the end. They gave him zofran for nausea and we will continue that every 8hrs for the next 48 hrs. Thankfully, his immune system will not be compromised until next wks treatment but we are having to learn a lot about germs, infection, and how to protect our little family. If one of us gets sick after next week, we will have to go stay somewhere else. Gotta keep the germs away as much as possible. Investing in hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes, haha!
We got to go to our home away from home as a family last night for the first time in almost a month! Judah got to take a real bath for the first time in over a month. We had dinner together, watched a movie together, read stories together and then went to bed! It was surreal and lovely and we thanked our precious Jesus for such a sweet return.
This morning we are back at Vandy for Judah’s baseline testing. Basically, they are checking kidney function, platelets/red/white blood cell counts, and liver functions. He will also have his hearing checked as hearing loss is a possible side effect of his chemo.
He wasn’t thrilled to be back here and when the nurses accessed his port, drew blood and injected the medicine for testing he was even less thrilled! It was pretty awful because the medicine had to be injected into a vein, not the port, but most of his easy veins were blown from previous ivs. It took them a good while but after they got it, it was smooth sailing.
Now we are just waiting for the 2hr mark to go get ckd again. Should be done around 1 today.
Judah has been taken back to surgery for his port placement. He was pretty upset when they wheeled him off. Prayers for comfort for Judah and steady handed Drs!
Judah is out of surgery and everything went as planned. He now has his port in place for chemo.
Please pray he bounces back from anesthesia quickly and his recovery continues to make steady progress. We are also hoping to get discharged soon and hope the feeding tube comes out.
Also join us in prayer for a definite plan for his OT/PT/Speech. Right now we don’t know where we are going or how those appts will look. We also need a plan for chemo if we get to come back to Knoxville for his therapy. Pray for clear direction.
We are officially discharged from the hospital!!!
We will be coming back tomorrow for baseline testing and then Wednesday is our first Chemo treatment but after that we get to come home to Knoxville!
We have been working hard for a week to figure out where we could do Judah’s pt/ot/speech and after giving up on Knoxville, I woke this morning and felt the urge to call East Tennessee Children’s Rehabilitation Center and just tell them our story in hopes they would change their minds about speech (it was wait listed for 6 months). They listened and then said that our oncologist could call and talk to them and of they felt Judah’s case was immediate enough they would move him to the top of the list.
So at 10am this morning I told our Case Manager, who told our oncologist, who agreed Andrew some calls and then after hrs of back and forth we got the word that they had agreed to take him!
So now we get to come home and do pt/ot/speech and Chemo in Knoxville! We are so grateful that we will be home, surrounded by our community, friends, support system. Thank you for your prayers. Keep them up. We have a long road and it is really just beginning. God is directing our path and we are finding that though this isn’t the rd we would choose, our sweet Jesus will not abandon us and will continue to go before us and behind us.
As I sit here typing this, he’s snuggled in his hospital bed playing. That’s a big deal because he used to do that every night when we’d put him to bed but hasn’t since the surgery. We’d put him in bed around 8:30 and he’d lay there reciting the dialog or humming the theme music to his favorite movies or acting out fighting scenes from his Next Avengers cartoon until usually 9:30 or 10 (we’d only have to tell him to be quiet 3 or 4 times before he’d hush). He’s not quite back to his chatty self at the moment but he’s over there swinging and punching his way through some imaginary fight scene.
Judah got to spend yesterday afternoon and most of this morning with Papa Doc and Mumzy and got to spend this afternoon with Mimi and Papaw. A friend from our church who’s been through chemo before came and visited and showed Judah her port so he wouldn’t be scared of tomorrow’s surgery.
Most importantly, Judah has spent the last two days eating! He’s had three full meals a day for two days now and has eaten almost all of them. The docs still insist on giving him tube feedings at night but I feel like he’s getting the calories he needs now during normal eating. There is a chance he’ll get to go home tomorrow after his port surgery so we’re praying for a quick recovery so everyone will feel comfortable sending him home! The first chemo treatment will be on Wednesday so we won’t have time to head all the way back to Knoxville but at least he’ll be out of the hospital.
We also hope to get a few more details ironed out about his physical/occupational/speech therapy tomorrow so prayers for God’s guidance in that area are also appreciated.
Judah had a good night and woke this morning hungry. He ate 3 pieces of bacon, 2 strawberries, 1 container of blueberry yogurt, and 3/4 a carton of milk! Off to a good start! Keep praying he continues to improve and the tube comes out!
Judah got to try some yogurt for the first time since the surgery! Swallow study this afternoon will tell us if he can go back to eating regular food.
Judah passed his swallow study so he gets Chic-Fil-A for dinner tonight! We got to drive him around the hospital in a wagon with no wires and no nurses and he got a couple of stuffed animals from the gift shop. His speech is getting better his strength is growing and he’s in a better mood. Thank you for your continued prayers and praise Jesus for a happy and healing little boy!
What a day this has been! Judah wakes talking, plays hard, eats yogurt, passes his swallow study, gets out of the PICU for a wagon ride, and then comes back to his room for some Chic-Fil-A only to be told he will be moving to the floor soon!!! Praise Jesus for such a wonderful, hope restoring day.
Thank you for being a praying people.
He is now comfortably resting!
Judah had a couple of naps today and during each of them he had a “desat”. That’s med-speak for his blood losing it’s oxygen saturation level. I put it in quotes (and yes I’m a little bitter) because I don’t actually believe either of the occasions were a real loss of oxygen in the blood but false positives inherent to the way this is measured. I made my case to the docs but out of an abundance of caution they took him off the list to move to a normal hospital room and decided to keep him in the PICU. We’ll pester them again tomorrow.
Otherwise he had a fantastic day today. He said a bunch of words today – honey, piglet, owl, brave, stuck, rabbit, bubby, my sister and parasaurolophus. None of them are perfect but the speech therapist says that his lips seem to be functioning well but his tongue’s not all there yet. He was super active, fighting dinosaurs with me (matthew), kicking his feet, sitting up on his own and batting both arms at a balloon. The PT/OT people had him up walking though not really holding his own weight up and he actually interacted willingly with them.
The next 6 days are likely to be frustrating and hectic. Judah’s oncologist wants to start chemo as soon as possible. While his tumor is the lowest grade and slow growing, it’s location means that any growth could have potential long term complications. So chemo starts Wednesday. Monday morning he’ll have his port put in (yes, another surgery with anesthesia), Tuesday he’ll have a bevy of tests to get some baselines before he starts chemo. Wednesday he gets the first treatment, followed every Wednesday for 10 weeks, then a two week break, then 4 weeks on and 1 off for a year.
Our problem is therapy. We had hoped they would be able to work something out were he could get pretty intensive outpatient therapy at Vandy but it’s not going to be ideal. For one they don’t have speech therapy so we’d have to find some place else for that. Second they would be wedging him in wherever there are openings in whomever’s schedule had an opening so there would be no routine or chance for a therapist to build report with him. It would be a different therapist at a different time every day for weeks and probably only an hour a day. There are other therapy centers that offer all three types, O/P/S, but they don’t take insurance and while their rates are lower than places that do take insurance we’d still be paying a ton out of pocket for the amount of therapy he needs.
Judah’s becoming more like his old self everyday but still needs lots of prayer. Prayer for continued healing, prayer for him to have patience for the dozens of people poking and prodding him and making him do stuff all day, prayer for a working therapy plan (and a way to pay for it), prayer for yet another surgery, prayer that chemo has few if any side effects and that it is effective in stopping the tumor permanently, prayer to get out of the PICU, prayer to get out of the hospital, prayer that Wendi and I have patience with the docs, nurses, bureaucracy and insurance companies and prayers for a long road ahead.
Last night was a long night. Judah has been having a lot of breakthrough pain and its keeping him awake and grouchy. It would make me the same way. He trying so hard to be brave and we are very proud of him.
He was approved to move to the hem/oc side of the floor yesterday but there weren’t any beds and as of this morning, there still aren’t any. We are so ready to get all these wires off and have more freedom.
Prayers are needed for:
-Pain management
-Moving to the hem/oc floor
-Continued healing of swallowing mechanism (we are hoping he can pass a swallow study before discharge so he doesn’t have to go home with a feeding tube)
-Continued healing of connection between what he knows and what he can say
-Healing of speech
-Bravery and strength during PT/OT
Well the surgery went great! Judah is on his way up from recovery now and will probably be in the PICU through the night. Cross your fingers that all goes well and we can move to the floor tomorrow!
And on another note, Matthew went to a barber shop and got his head shaved today to match Judah. He walked into the barber and asked him to shave his head and the barber said, “why would you do that?” So Matthew politely told him that his son was having brain surgery and his head would be shaved when he got out so he was going to match it. The barber, who felt terrible, said, “open mouth insert foot.” HAHA!
He looks so different but his head is actually really well shaped for a bald head, :)Judah thinks Daddy’s head has a funny feeling!
For the last few days, they have had Judah’s Intra Cranial Pressure (ICP) drain clamped to see if he can naturally drain/absorb it. We all thought he was because his ICP’s were reading so low and he was doing so well. At 4 am they took Judah down for a CT to ck on swelling and drainage of his spinal fluid from the brain in hopes of taking the ICP drain out. However, they found that I stead of draining it was actually just forcing its way out of the surgery wound into the area between the skin and skull. So he wasn’t managing his fluid. His fluid had just found an easier way out of the brain.
So tomorrow morning, if all goes well scheduling wise, they will put in a permanent shunt that will drain fluid from the brain to his belly internally. The surgery should only take an 1-2hrs and is minimal in risk. The Dr said it shouldn’t set him back any but instead give him the freedom to move around more and dive into PT/OT for quicker recovery.
We were at first sad about the prospect of another surgery but agreed that we need to move past this drainage issue and onto the talking/walking/treating the rest of the tumor issue. This affords us that.
We would appreciate continued prayers for Judah, surgery, recovery, us, and just being separated as a family. We miss Judah and Camilla Kate together.
Judah is going to need very intensive physical/occupational/speech therapy to fully recover and the logistics of that are complicated. Most of the Drs here think he needs inpatient therapy for 3-5 weeks but there is no inpatient therapy center in all of Tennessee that takes kids his age, the closest is Atlanta. One of the Drs thinks he can work something out here at Vanderbilt to get Judah outpatient therapy but in an intensive way – say 3 or more hours a day 6 days a week.
Being able to do therapy here would be much better for us as a family so we’re asking for specific prayers for God to open doors and make the therapy choices very clear and easy.
Thanks for all the encouraging words and prayers!
The surgery to put the shunt in will be tomorrow morning at 7:30am. Should be about an hour and a half and he’ll be intubated again but the tube will come out when the surgery is over. The process used to route the shunt to his belly will be pretty painful for Judah when he wakes up and he’ll have a total of 5 or 6 incisions (including the ones he already has) and every incision is an infection risk. So please pray for a flawless surgery, minimal pain and no infections!
