No News is Good News....

It's been about a month. In that time, we have been busy. March 1st saw Eddie's Rat Hockey night with the league he's been playing for. About 20 guys showed up to play and support Eddie. It was great to see everyone stepping up to help him out. Eddie even got out and took a few shots.

Eddie finished his final round of Chemo on March 11th. On his final day of treatment, per tradition, Eddie signed the boxing gloves at the Chemo treatment center at Porter. He has also become pretty close to the nurses that took such great care of him (Thank you for taking care of my hubs, Mary & Nicole). Mercy came to see Eddie off too.

Since then, we've joined the YMCA, begun planning our summer, and started getting back to some semblance of "normal." We've been trying to get outside as the weather gets nicer, and moving more and more to drop some of the weight we both gained as a result of the emotionally charged and dreary winter. Baloo has been loving the extra attention and exercise.

Dr. Braik and Eddie

Last week (March 29th), Eddie had a PET scan to check the status of his cancerous tumor. On April 2nd (Tuesday), we met with Dr. Braik to go over the results. We did not get bad news, but did not get the "all clear" we were hoping for either. The scan showed that there was still some activity in the tumor site. However, Seminoma is notorious for lighting up on a PET scan even when the cells are dead (residual scar tissue). He recommended that we follow up with Dr. VanderWeele at Northwestern (with whom we sought our second opinion). So on Friday we headed to Northwestern.

Dr. VanderWeele looked at the results of the scan that we took with us and seems to think that the scan is very promising. He is going to review and consult with his team and let us know this coming week what course of action he recommends. The most likely scenario will be that we keep an eye on the tumor and re-scan in a few months. Another possibility is surgery to remove the cells that are showing up. However, in my limited range of understanding, it seems like surgery or another round of chemo won't be necessary, because Dr. VanderWeele believes that the cells that are lighting up are residual scarring, and will continue to fade as the months progress.

So, we continue to wait and pray and go about our days. Keep us in your prayers, because the waiting is just as hard. However, I'm going to cling to positives and trust that everything will turn out fine. We will keep you updated when we have a better idea of our next course of action. In the meantime, I've got a Prom to host, an academic team to coach, gymnastics to judge, and t-shirts to print. Idle hands.....

P.S. Just wanted to send out an extra shout out to Lori. She's been there for Eddie and I over the past few months - taking him to and from treatments, keeping track of meds, detailed notes during doctor visits and schedules organized for appointments. Also, she's cleaned our house, made me lunches, and just generally been around for us both. I've had a lot of friends and family that I've reached out to over the last few months, but I feel like Lori has earned a special thanks! Love you lots 💕