Brody Continuing to Feel Better Each Day

Brody has been continuing to feel a little better each day.   He is able to walk a lot faster now and can almost run.   His belly is still sore to touch and it hurts when he moves from sitting to standing or from lying to sitting.   Going up and down stairs still hurts too.   But like I said,  he is walking and almost running and can sit or lie down without pain.   And,  the pain is less and less each day.   Brody is also adjusting well to having the internal stent in his urterer.   He is not having very much pain with it anymore.   It usually doesn't cause him pain unless he has to urinate into a cup for a urine specimen or at the end of his urine stream for a couple seconds.   This internal stent can stay in for up to 6 months so the plan now since Brody is tolerating it well,  is to leave it in for a while until we know if his chemo will work better now that the tumor is smaller.   We would hate to remove it only to have to repeat surgery to place it again if the tumor starts to grow rapidly again.   Obviously,  we hope this does not happen but know it certainly could.  

Brody had a CT scan today and is starting back on chemo again today.   The CT scan was done so that we have a baseline for after surgery to compare future CT scans to.   I just looked at Brody's last CT scan compared to today's scan and OH MY GOODNESS,  WOW!!!!   It's an extreme difference between the two scans.    I have no idea how Brody was not in a lot more pain and discomfort before the surgery.   Everything in his abdomen down to his groin was all squished and wrapped with tumor.   A picture is worth a thousand words.   I am really glad I did not see this scan before his surgery because I would have been even more worried than I already was.   Dr.  Stockman (our surgeon) is beyond awesome!   Wow!! Wow!!  Wow!!   The part of the tumor that remains is adhered to the ileac artery,  the aortic bifurcation,  and parts of his bowel.   This section was not removed because the surgeon felt the risk of serious complications were to great to remove this part of the tumor.   There is no way to remove all of a tumor like this even if he had tried to go for this section.   The tumor was adhered to just about everywhere/every vital structure in Brody's abdomen.   To be able to remove all of the tumor you need to take a margin of healthy tissue everywhere that the tumor had adhered to.  You cannot take a margin out of bladder or his bowel or his major blood vessels etc etc.   So there was no way to remove all of it.   The surgeon was able to remove about 95% of the tumor mass.   Several different chemo options work far better on tumors that are smaller.   The larger the tumor,  the harder it is to get many chemo drugs into the tumor.    We are hoping that we can finally get ahead of the cancer now that the tumor is much smaller.  The tumor is still a significant size.   It's flat like a pancake now and stretching across significant territory.   It's not a regular shape at all to tell you dimensions.   This flatter tumor still covers much of his abdomen centered around the aortic bifurcation but more so to the left ileac artery area than to the right.   But both are involved.  

Brody has started back on the same chemo regimen he was taking before surgery minus the one drug that blocks angiogenesis (formation of new blood vessels).  This is the bevacizumab.   He will start back on the bevacizumab in 2 weeks.   Today he has started back on vinorelabine and cyclophosphamide.   Brody has tolerated this chemo regimen extremely well for many months now and so far it has been the most effective.   Let's hope,  pray,  cross fingers,  make wishes and anything else you can think of that it will work well enough to prevent further tumor growth/spread of the cancer now that the mass is much smaller.  

Brody will have another CT scan in 6 weeks to check how the chemo is working.   It will be compared to the new baseline scan done today.   Now that Brody's tumor is much smaller and flat,  I can no longer feel it when palpitating Brody's belly.   His oncologist cannot feel it anymore either.   This is a good thing except that now I can't just feel his belly to tell if the tumor is growing or not growing.  So I am sure I will be even more anxious than usual in the days leading up to each CT scan.  

We are looking forward to enjoying some family outings we were unable to do prior to Brody's surgery.   I see a waterpark trip and trips to the swimming pool and playing in the hot tub in our near future.   We have to wait for clearance from the surgeon first,  of course,  though.   Our follow-up appointment with the surgeon is this next week (March 20th).   Brody also wants to take a trip to Florida and play on the beach and go to Disney World and ride Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain again.   I am not sure if we can swing the Florida trip yet or not but we will see what we can do.   It's complicated both financially and coordinating Brody's treatments/chemo.  

Thanks to everyone for all your prayers and support through all of this.   It does help to know there are so many people out there praying for us.