Brody got his second HSV Injection on Friday

Sorry for the lack of updates.

Brody has been feeling mostly well. He and us are adjusting once again to having a nephrostomy tube. His kidney function has been continuing to improve and his last set of labs 2 days ago (Saturday) showed his creatinine down to 0.63 (normal range is 0.3 to 0.7)-- the previous week before his tube was placed it has been as high as 3.50 so a definite improvement. This is about as low as we have seen since about January or February-- it had been trending up in March and into April to around 0.8 to 0.9. 

We were hoping that there was an issue with his internal stint causing the problems but we have now concluded that the tumor has been pressing on the stint/ureter enough to obstruct the urine flow to his bladder and his kidney has likely been under some stress for some time. The reason we believe this is that his groin swelling (edema-- from fluid accumlation) has almost completely resolved itself and his weight has rapidly dropped about 6 or 7 pounds-- his recent gain in weight was most likely from fluid retention-- his left leg had been swollen some too and this looks almost normal now. His urine output for the first few days with the nephrostomy tube was definitely more then he was taking in.

Brody, Trish, and Geordi and Jaden wend to Columbus on Tuesday night for and he had a PET CT and MRI  on Wednesday to plan for his HSV injection-- these showed there had been some growth on the side of the tumor next to the kidney--- this also showed to be the "hottest" part of his tumor (PET CT shows where the cancer is most active). It also showed that there looked to be no activity where the HSV injection was given previously...... as a result of this, his second HSV injection was put into this part of his tumor on Friday morning.... everything went fine-- Brody woke up kind of early from the procedure (he usually sleeps a while after) and seemed kind of distressed-- anxious-- kind of hard to explain-- he complained of back pain and a headache and a few other symptoms but after getting some tylenol, a popsicle and cookie, and some, diet coke-- he felt better. He watched Netflix and played a little bit of video games on friday and was discharged on Saturday about 1 pm.

Brody was happy that they changed his nephrostomy tube dressing while he was under so he didn't have to sit through us pulling all the tape off his back-- the dressing must be changed at least once a week-- he remembers not liking this one bit.

Other then the above-- not much going on with us. We have to follow up twice this week and then weekly visits until his next injection.

More later....