Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Cycle 2 - Complete!

Our resident tough guy, Edward, has successfully completed his second cycle of chemotherapy!  I unfortunately had to work and thus, Katie and Edward headed up to Philadelphia without me to check cycle 2 off the list.  They actually spent the whole week and Easter weekend up in Philadelphia with Katie's family. 

Edward first had his EUA on Wednesday at the Wills Eye Institute to check on the progress of the tumors.  After only the first cycle, we were hopeful that we would see the tumors were the same size and definitely not bigger or with new signs of vitreous or retinal seeding  (which are kind of markers of tumor growth).   Yet again, we had another Easter miracle as both tumors were actually smaller!!!!  Our opthalmalogist was very pleased with what she saw and remains hopeful that we can preserve his vision in his right eye.  The vision in his left eye will almost certainly be compromised no matter how successful our treatments are, so the goal is to avoid enucleation of this eye and preserve whatever vision he may have left in this eye.

Following a long but successful morning at Wills Eye, Katie, Edward and Grammy Schuster made their way to CHOP for chemo.  The first few hours of the infusions went well without any serious breathholding or passing out!  They spent the night and received the second infusion of etoposide Thursday morning.  All in all, a very successful trip.  The only bad news is that we learned during this past visit that CHOP does not take our insurance.  We knew Wills Eye did NOT and planned to appeal the 'out-of-network' rate to our insurance company due to medical necessity.  However, we were first told that CHOP did take our insurance, only to find out this past week that they do NOT!  So if any of you actually won that mega millions a few weeks ago, expect an email from us...haha! In all seriousness, because of this change, we may need to receive the rest of our chemotherapy at UVA.  Decisions, decisions.....

Katie and Edward then spent Easter weekend knee-deep in chocolate bunnies (for Edward) and jelly beans (for Katie).  Enjoy the pictures below!  We are now all back together safely in Charlottesville and have a CBC check planned for this Thursday at UVA.




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