Radiation

The radiation has begun! We had our first apt yesterday. Ethan and I headed off to Tuoro Hospital for the treatment. They partner with Children’s Hospital seeing as the radiation machine is approx. $4 million.

Ethan has been doing well over the last couple of weeks- just knowing the Chemo is done has been a huge morale booster. I have watched and seen his strength return these weeks and I can no longer take it easy when we rough house and when he punches me in the arm it hurts again.   We have had a couple of days where he has not even napped. One day he ran around with me, which included getting plats for the garden and materials at Lowes for a job. Later that night his ankles hurt just from walking so much. There will definitely be a considerable time of recovery and rebuilding when this is over. This past week he has commented a number of times that his eyes seem better as well, so I drug him out to the ball field to make him try and hit a golf ball. With one eye closed he nailed it with the second swing. 

The family spirits are better for the moment, he spent a 2 evenings/ nights with his friends and this was a huge boost and even played some video games for a few hours. Beth is done with Mid-terms, Chas has had more direct attention, and Tabi and I went backpacking for 2 nights.

Last Friday, Ethan and I went in for a number of tests to check over things now that Chemo is done and they all looked good. The only thing to note was lower thyroid function. (.03 lower to .76)  This is not a surprise but it is directly related to hormones which have their control center located in the third ventricle close to where the tumor was located, and will be the focus of the radiation It will be watched as we continue. With this information we got the ok to start Radiation. The treatment actually only takes about 7 minutes but Thursday’s and Friday’s will be the longer days due to Doctor visits. Ethan lays down on the bed (see Picture) and the machine moves around his head shooting the radiation form many directions but it all ends up in the middle ventricle. The many angles of radiation keep the radiation in surrounding areas low and high in the middle where they all meet. Ethan asked me, “what happens if the aim at the wrong spot?” that should give you a bit of where his head is.

The night before we went in he asked me to stay in his room for a bit longer just to be present he said “ I don’t want the day to end.” It is very hard starting this knowing the side effects that are coming especially after feeling so well for a few weeks. But we have started and we laughed a good bit all the way through day one. And day 2 Beth and Ethan had a flat after radiation but they got it taken care of.  They say it will be about 2 weeks before he feels the fatigue, so we are going to make the best of it. This week the schedule is different times but after that it will be every day at 1030 AM

Want to say a special thanks to those that have given both in moral support and finical support. After the time spent in missions I did not expect the response we got. Thanks so much it is greatly appreciated and slightly over whelming.