PATHOLOGY RESULTS

I haven’t blogged since we got home because honestly we’ve been having too much fun! But before I get into all of that let me start with the most important thing that has happened since we’ve been home… we got the pathology results from Caleb’s doctor and his tumor was NEGATIVE for any cancerous cells. We’ll find out tomorrow during our appointment exactly what our doctor has to say about that, but according to the report it looks like they are calling it a skull tumor containing bone fragments and tissue growth. Call it what you want, no cancer, and specifically no AT/RT is cause to celebrate because WE ARE MOVING HOME!!!!!

As I write we are on our way back to Memphis for a few days to do Caleb’s final blood work and pack up the rest of our stuff in our apartment. We will officially live in our new house this Sunday!!! We are beyond excited but it is taking some time for this news to even really sink in. We can’t believe we made it through this whole ordeal with Caleb showing no evidence of disease. We can’t wait to get home and try to get back in a normal routine that doesn’t involve practically living at the hospital. We will be getting routine blood work in Tampa every 4 weeks, and flying up to St. Jude every 12 weeks for scans and blood work and any other routine assessments. We met with Caleb’s new oncologist in the Tampa area while we were home to get to know him and understand how things will work when we are here. He was very nice and has experience with other St. Jude patients, so we feel confident in the relationship we will have with him as well as St. Jude going forward.

So, I wish I could go over every awesome moment we had in the few days we were home, but there were so many… the kids got to sit in the cockpit of an airplane, we were met at the airport by family, James pushed me in the pool fully dressed HA HA!! We had some of our closest friends over for a pool party, we visited my Oma, the kids got to see their Mimi (my grandma), we saw our church family, the boys spent lots of fun with Grandma and Bruce, we visited one of Caleb’s pre-school friends, James’ parents and our neice spent a few days with us, and we spent the majority of our time IN THE POOL!!! We felt like we were on vacation at our own house. And then the best part, while we were on our way to a St. Jude event (the kickoff for the upcoming Tampa St. Jude walk) we found out the good news from Caleb’s doctor. It was wonderful to celebrate this news and have other former St. Jude patients around us who understood how significant this news was for us. It was such an amazing trip home all the way around. There are more people we wish we could have seen, but since this trip was short we didn’t get to do everything we wanted. We will be seeing everyone very soon!

I am sure the next few days will be filled with mixed emotions, but mostly happiness. I am so grateful to St. Jude for giving us HOPE that this day would come and it’s finally here. We’ll let you know what Caleb’s doctor says after his lab work tomorrow, especially about our treatment plan for home. Can’t wait to celebrate with everyone very soon!