News from the Oncologist

The pediatric oncologist called today with the pathology results from the neuroblastoma lab.  She said that all the tissue they received was necrotic - there weren't enough live cells to do the genetic testing on to make a definite diagnosis of neuroblastoma.  So while we're fairly certain that it's neuroblastoma, all the pathologists can say is that the tumor "favors neuroblastoma", but they don't have any specimen that is good enough to be able to make a definitive diagnosis. 

She has a call in to the surgeon, but based on what he said after the initial pathology results came in, she doesn't think that another surgery to get more tissue would be helpful.  The surgeon thinks he got the best specimens he could and doesn't think he could get anything better by doing more surgery. 

So the oncologist has sent all the information she has on Finn to Dr. Maris, a neuroblastoma expert at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to get his opinion on what we should do next.  Her feeling is that without an absolute definite diagnosis, we should hold off on chemotherapy, especially since it looks like the tumor might be dying on its own, anyway. 

Dr. Maris might feel differently though, and since he's the guru, I'm going to go with whatever his recommendation ends up being.  Which means there's a chance we might still end up with chemo.  But for right now, I'm going to allow myself to be optimistic that we're just going to be doing some watchful waiting for a while!

If we don't do chemo, Finn will get an MRI next week to act as a post-surgery baseline, and then another MRI in about 4-6 weeks to see if there's been any change.  Funny how just 3 weeks ago, general anesthesia for an MRI was the worst thing I could imagine, and now our current plan of two more MRIs in the next month or so is good news!

I'm really looking forward to the upcoming long weekend.  I'm exhausted and ready for a few days off.  I have a few blog posts I want to work on, a LOT of blog commenting to do (I've been reading, but not commenting much) and tons of emails to respond to.  I can't think of any better way to spend the weekend right now than holding Finn as he naps and spending time doing just that.  Unless it's napping right along with him.