Friday, September 01, 2006
A very medical week
Jacob had a bronchoscopy this morning and it went very smoothly. Basically, they put him out and looked around his lungs with a video scope, and took samples from different areas to see where the aspergillis fungus is coming from. Here he and Young are in the waiting room at 7:30 am.
He spent a while in the recovery room, and then took a quick trip downstairs for a CT of his sinuses to see if the infection is there, and then we got to go home.
Since Aspergillis is usually an oportunistic infection in people with weak immune systems, they repeated his immune studies this week as well. Aspergillis can be serious and hard to treat, but so far he's okay. In fact the doctors okayed him to start school on tuesday as scheduled and to go camping with his class wednesday through friday. We should have results from all or most of these tests before then, so he can start treatment, which will probably just be pills.
All in all it was a very medical week - starting with poor Sparky who sliced his foreleg on a nail Sunday, and had to be stitched up at the emergency vet.
And Jacob had an encouraging MRI on monday. I'll quote his neuro-oncologist, Paul Fisher: "All good news, Ann: decreased enhancement and swelling, and the tumor spectroscopy is indeed consistent with radiation effect/necrosis."
This is the first time since these spots showed up in Novemeber that they haven't increased in enhancement (brightness) let alone actually decreasing, so we were very happy about that.
And it will be nice to actually treat Jacob's lung infection so he can really get over this thing.
He spent a while in the recovery room, and then took a quick trip downstairs for a CT of his sinuses to see if the infection is there, and then we got to go home.
Since Aspergillis is usually an oportunistic infection in people with weak immune systems, they repeated his immune studies this week as well. Aspergillis can be serious and hard to treat, but so far he's okay. In fact the doctors okayed him to start school on tuesday as scheduled and to go camping with his class wednesday through friday. We should have results from all or most of these tests before then, so he can start treatment, which will probably just be pills.
All in all it was a very medical week - starting with poor Sparky who sliced his foreleg on a nail Sunday, and had to be stitched up at the emergency vet.
And Jacob had an encouraging MRI on monday. I'll quote his neuro-oncologist, Paul Fisher: "All good news, Ann: decreased enhancement and swelling, and the tumor spectroscopy is indeed consistent with radiation effect/necrosis."
This is the first time since these spots showed up in Novemeber that they haven't increased in enhancement (brightness) let alone actually decreasing, so we were very happy about that.
And it will be nice to actually treat Jacob's lung infection so he can really get over this thing.
# posted by Ann @ 5:20 PM 
