Detour

Detours are annoying. A couple months ago President Obama was in Fort Collins. I discovered this not because there was any warning, but by the jarring wait of being stuck in traffic. The officers directing traffic then sent me right down another closed road. It was frustrating and I spent the morning stuck in traffic.

The part that bugged me the most is that there wasn't any warning. I would've taken a different route had I known what was coming. In the end, we got where we were going.

Our attending physician is away at a conference so another doctor, Dr. Greffe, is responsible for Esther's care. We really like Dr. Greffe, especially because he was Thomas' doctor. Anyway, Dr. Greffe called this morning to tell us that the MIBG therapy study has been suspended indefinitely and that Esther will not have MIBG therapy in a few weeks.

They have been getting some preliminary results on the first 11 children, two of them had particular severe reactions and one of those died. I feel awful for those families, please lift them up in prayer. I could only imagine the responsibility I would feel if Esther died during this portion of her treatment, it is the elective portion, the additional risk would be of our doing. Oh, pray for these families.

Over the last few weeks I have felt increasingly uncomfortable with leaving to go to Ohio. It has not felt right and I've been struggling with feeling peaceful. This phone call brought one big sigh of relief.

One of Anthony's aunt, Candy, was planning to come out during the first week were going to be gone, but she too had a feeling something was not right and hadn't booked airline tickets. Both my mom and sister also shared they had not been feeling peaceful about it either. Just this weekend I was thinking through what would happen if we backed out of the study.

We will make it to the end of this detour. Instead of taking more time, it will actually eliminate at least a month, possibly two, from Esther's treatment course. Our original route is no longer valid, we need to recalculate the GPS.

Esther will have a 6th round of chemo. It will probably be the first week of November. She will then have about 4 weeks to recover and she'll go straight into her high dose chemo and stem cell transplant, radiation, and then antibody therapy. This is the standard treatment protocol for stage 4, high risk, neuroblastoma.

A new thing to trust, that Esther will be healed without this therapy and will not relapse. That the radiologist will still be able to pinpoint any leftover cancer cells without the stain of MIBG. I have found myself frequently saying that we can do what we can to medically treat cancer, but God is the one who heals.

We have some details to work out like canceling our flights and cars. Please pray these would be able to be refunded for everyone. Dr. Greffe said he'll do whatever is needed, but as you probably know, airlines are not forgiving.

My dad had his PET scan today. There was some activity in a lypmph node under his right arm and in his throat. This could be cancer cells or something different. Our obvious request is that these areas would come back clean. From what they understand now, he'll have both chemo and radiation. Thank you for praying for him and for us.

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