Preliminary Report

Ben's nurse called this afternoon to give us a little news. The first great thing is the spinal tap came back negative (woo hoo!). The preliminary report on the bone marrow is that the blasts have stayed under 5% which is also a great thing. Of course, I will be more excited when we get the final report tomorrow confirming this! They have not received the report on the MRD number. Although they are hoping to get the results tomorrow, the tests are being conducted by an outside lab so they really can't guarantee when we will receive them.

I was joking with the nurse that I felt like I was forgetting to give Ben some of his medicines. I had been lining them all up on the island because there were so many I needed to make sure I had them all (and had to make sure I had them in the right order - Ben likes to take them from the worst tasting to the best). Right now there are only 3 and she says that I can probably stop one of them for at least a little while. It sure is nice to get a little break from the huge amounts of medicine!

She said that we may need to come in to see them later this week or over the weekend just to do a fibrinogen test to get ready for next week's spinal tap but other than that we should really have the week off! We do have to go see the cardiologist for a follow-up EKG on Wednesday but that should be pretty easy. So everything is good right now!

Only one weird thing today. Ben came with me to pick up David from camp this afternoon and we parked and walked over to the school playground. Ben was excited that he might get a chance to see some of his friends. He was very excited when he saw a friend and went up and said hello...but the friend wouldn't say hello back. Ben was a bit confused and sad about this. After talking about it for a little while Ben decided that his friend was probably just surprised to see him and maybe he didn't recognize him at first because of his weight gain. I think I need to plan some more playdates. I think it will be good for Ben to see his friends more when he is up to it and also good for his friends to see that even though he might look a little different and doesn't have the same amount of energy he is still the same old amazing and wonderful Ben!