Where we go from here

We have obviously been focused on Brody's surgery and his surgical recovery the last few weeks and even Trish and I haven't really looked too far out regarding Brody's treatment.

First of all-- Brody's surgeon did an outstanding job-- he was careful not to get our hopes up too much going in as he really had no idea what he was getting into until he opened Brody up-- we are extremely thankful that he did such a good job on Brody's tumor-- we were concerned with him having alot of blood loss as the main source of Brody's tumor was his illiac vein which was pretty low down in his abdomen with a big tumor blocking access. The fact that Brody only lost 4 units (pints) of blood was amazing. Another bit of good news is that approximately 75% of Brody's tumor was dead (most of the lower part of it)-- this was somewhat expected as this is how it appeared on Brody's PET CT he had a few weeks ago.

We spoke with Brody's oncologist today before Brody was discharged today and got an idea of how we are proceding going forward.

Brody is taking another week off of chemo and the plan is to resume his chemo next friday (March 15th)-- this will be our Day 1 of his 28 day cycle-- he will get Vinrelobine and resume his oral Cyclophosmide. 2 weeks after this (day 15) Brody will get his Bevacizumab-- as mentioned previously, this Chemo works by blocking new blood vessel formation-- we had to suspend this for at least 4 weeks prior to his surgery and another 4 weeks after as Brody needs to make new blood vessels in order to heal. We are hopeful that the remains of the tumor will not grow significantly between now and then and that the chemo regimen that Brody is on continues to work.

We will likely be getting a CT done in the next week or so to get Brody a new "baseline"-- (something to compare future CTs to).

Our immediate concern is to get Brody eating and drinking more this weekend. He has not eaten or drank much today and we hope he gets back on that right away.

Tomorrow Brody gets to take his first real shower since last May (when he got his Nephrostomy tubes placed)-- Hoping he enjoys it.

Brody still has an internal stint going from his right kidney to his bladder-- it hasn't bothered him too much so far but it did bother him for a few minutes today (causes him some pain).... this will be in for several more weeks as he heals up.

Thats about it for now-- once again--- thanks to everyone for all the support we have gotten as we have dealt with all of this....

Bill