Appointment with Radiation Oncologist

I met with Brody's Radiation Oncologist on Friday.  The appointment basically involved reviewing Brody's past medical history and a breif discussion as to what to expect with Brody's upcoming radiation therapy treatments.  The doctor explained that once Brody starts radiation therapy, he will be coming in for treatments each day Monday through Friday.   Each treatment will take about 40mins and he will have to lay perfectly still during that 40 mins so they will have things ready to give him anesthesia each time if needed.  Side effects from the radiation include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, skin reactions, possible damage to organs nearby the tumor bed being treated, damage to the bone (especially to the spinal column near area being treated) which may cause Brody to not grow as tall as he would have otherwise.  Radiation therapy also increases the risk of Brody developing another type of cancer later in life.   The doctor also told me today that 2 lymph nodes in Brody's pelvis area looked enlarged on past scans.  This was the first time anyone had mentioned this to me.  Quite alarming news for me.  Brody will be having another CT scan in a few weeks to see if his tumor is small enough yet to have surgery to remove it.  After it is removed is when the radiation therapy will start and continue for 6 weeks.  He will also be getting chemo during that time.  After the radiation therapy he will get another 15 weeks of chemo.  I will be asking his oncologist today (we're at the hospital for chemo right now) about the enlarged lymph nodes.  Wondering if they will remove them during the surgery also/whether they suspect the cancer has spread to those lymph nodes/how bad is this news/why didn't anybody mention it before?  The radiation oncologist brought it up to mention that if they end up needing to radiate in the area of these lymph nodes that they are very close to Brody's testicles so he wanted to be sure we understood that this may cause infertility issues for Brody. 

Anyhow I'm really scared of how radiation therapy is going to go for Brody.  But it absolutely has to be done.  The benefits certainly outweigh the risks.

After our appointment with the radiation oncologist on Friday we headed home to get started with a fun Memorial Day weekend.  My cousin Shawnda has been watching our beagle dog Tori for us (to help us cut down on infection risk sources).  She lives in Columbus but came up for a visit with Tori and her 3 small children (twin girls age 2 1/2 and one boy age 4).  They stayed with us on Friday and Saturday.  We have all really missed Tori and were glad she could bring her up for a visit.  It was nice to see my cousin again and the kids all had a good time playing together.  We all played on the waterpark and swimming pool for a little bit on Friday evening.  Then we went to the African Wildlife Safari Park on Saturday.  Unfortunately Geordi got sick with nausea and vomiting on Friday evening and he had to go spend Friday evening, Saturday and part of Sunday at Papaw and Grandma's house.  Then Jaden started getting sick on Sunday.  But they were both better by Monday (Memorial day) and we all had a fun day together as a family.  Bill had to work all weekend but was off on Monday to enjoy the day with the rest of us.  Bill was a little ill on Sunday too but so far (knock on wood) Brody and I have managed to avoid this one. 

 

Brody is in the hospital today to start his 4th round of chemo.   Today he will get Vincristine, Acinomycin-D, cyclophosphamide and Mesna.  He gets admitted overnight when he does the cyclophosphamide because he has to be on fluids for at least 24 hours following administration of the cyclophosphamide.  He usually gets a lot of nausea with this combo.  Generally by a few days after he starts to feel better.  Let's all hope it's not too bad this time.