On Tuesday Ethan went for his 6 week CT Scan.
I will give a brief background to this for those who are just joining us. If you want the results skip to the end!
Normally with Wilms Tumours the plan of attack is to operate straight away to remove the kidney and hence the tumour. This is then followed by chemotherapy. However having stage 5 bilateral Wilms tumours complicated things! As there are tumours in both kidneys and spots in the lungs the plan of attack is to save as much renal tissue as possible. So instead of going straight to surgery we started a 6 week chemotherapy plan to try and shrink the tumours before removing them.
Before we started chemotherapy, we were told that there were three possibilities:
- The tumours don’t respond and keep growing
- The tumours respond to treatment but then start going haywire and growing in unusual ways
- The desired outcome that they respond well and start shrinking quickly.
However we also needed the chemotherapy to work in the lungs to stop the cancer spreading there. So really a lot had to happen in order to have the desired outcome.
We could tell from the feel and look of Ethan’s tummy that the large tumour in his left kidney had been shrinking. We were excited by that and remained optimistic and faithful that we would get the outcome we were praying so earnestly for.
There was quite the lead up to the scan itself as we were undecided on whether or not to have him do the scan under a general anesthetic or fully awake and hence having to lie completely still. The night before we weren’t feeling too optimistic. He had had a bad afternoon/evening with uncontrollable melt downs and hysteria. That is one of the hardest things to deal with as we are sometimes powerless to help or to know what to do. However Tuesday morning Luke and I both pondered it and prayed about it independently. We both came to the same conclusion – that Ethan could definitely do it awake. This meant he didn’t have to fast all morning which was a huge plus.
Ethan was AMAZING! He lay so still and was so well behaved. I stayed next to him for the whole scan dressed in a big suit to limit the radiation I received. He did everything he was asked to do and they managed to get the image they needed on the first pass through. It only took a few minutes. Definitely better than fasting and suffering the effects (short and long term) of having another G. A.
We were given a preliminary overview from what our oncologist could see on Tuesday. Today we received the official results from the experts who read the scans.
Ethan’s lungs were 100% clear of spots. The spots that showed in the first scan are no longer there and no other spots were found! We are THRILLED with this outcome! The tumour in the right kidney is now quite small and very contained. It should be a straight forward surgery to remove that one. The tumour in the left kidney has shrunk a lot, however it is still large. Considering how huge it was to begin with this is not unexpected or sad news. It is great news – the shrinkage that has occurred is significant. The surgeon and the oncologist both agree that we should proceed with another 6 weeks of chemotherapy so the tumours can continue to shrink before surgery.
We are all booked in to go, continuing with our Thursday chemotherapy treatments. Ethan is handling the chemo and its side effects better each time. The number of medicines he now requires is far less than at the beginning as he doesn’t need as much anti nausea any more. After this next 6 weeks he will have another scan and an MRI to get all the final images ready for surgery.
We are truly grateful for the outcome we have so far. This is a huge blessing for Ethan and our family and an answer to many prayers! We want to express our gratitude to all those who have joined with us in fasting and praying for our little boy. We continue to receive cards and well wishes from friends all over the country and globe. We feel so blessed to have such wonderful support and combined faith exercised on Ethan’s behalf and we thank you for it.