After a peaceful week, mostly back at home in Ashfield, we are now back in the saddle here in Boston. We are in Founders for two evening MRIs. Orion has just gone in wearing his hospital gown and sporting his shaved pate. As we waited I brought out the protocol, the treatment plan developed in the past year to treat his peculiarly rare brain cancers. The protocol is called ACNS0122 and lays out the schedule of chemotherapy cycles, the specific chemical poisons, the concentrations and the next steps before radiation.Tomorrow Orion starts cycle three and by this weekend he will be done with half his chemotherapy. The prudent and impatient doctors decided on this early look MRI. I expect we will be able to report good results tomorrow. I went over the protocol with Orion because I want him clear eyed about the various twists and turns in his "tree" of treatment choices. If the cancer is destroyed by the chemicals, as evidenced by vanishing protein markers AND clear images, he moves on to radiation.
If things don't look as good he will have to have another brain surgery.
If things really go south with no response to the chemo then he will have go with a stem cell harvest and then rescue before moving on to radiation.
His spirit remains high, he jokes, he continues his school work. The grad school acceptance remain unchanged so the University of Michigan remains his top destination.
I will post a photo of him in the next fews days as he does cycle three of Carboplatin and Etoposide in the Yawkey Clinic at MGH.
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