Mark P

UPDATE 12/18/14: 61% of life in hospital, but overall doing well right now - initial CSF/BM negative

We've settled in on doing a mix of feedings from bottles during the day and feeding tube over night. At first the bottle feedings were not going well, so they were supplemented with tube feeding each time, but now he's adapted better back to the bottles and quantity desired.

His biggest issue right now is chemo-induced diarrhea resulting in a sore bottom. I'll keep the details to a minimum In the grand scheme of things I'm happy this is his worst issue, but at the same time he doesn't also need to be dealing with this. So it goes with side effects...

He had a spinal tap (lumbar puncture) and bone marrow aspiration (previously they did biopsy which includes bone; aspiration is "just" fluid) last week as we started the 3rd phase and his Cerebrospinal Fluid has come back negative for Leukemia, and his initial Bone Marrow Fluid has also come back Negative for Leukemia here at Duke. A sample was also sent to Johns Hopkins where they are able to provide 100 times more accurate results (to 1/100 of 1%). We're still waiting to hear back on that. Remission, which he's in right now, is less than 5%. Duke is accurate to 1% and they say he has 0 Leukemia cells in his bone marrow.


Daddy doing graphs:


Reindeer Maxwell:


Reindeer Maxwell, take 2:


Making Monkey faces!

Mark P

Oh, he also got visits from Santa and the Duke Men's Basketball Team, and Women's...

Pretty sure this is the real Santa:




He was also recorded with the Women's team for a commercial. We'll see if he makes it past the editing floor cut. With all that activity, nobody remembered to grab a photo though - doh!

JBDinTX

In my thoughts and prayers. Keep your head up!!! Our little niece had battled stage 4 starting at the age of 3. She is 10 now and has been cancer free for 4 years.

Dalancroft

You can tell that is one happy, smily baby! Ours are now 14 (girl, freshman in HS) and boy, 10 (fifth grader) and they are literally the light of our lives. As the risk of sounding cliche', keep on keepin' on, hope for the best, keep your chin up, and all that. We just sent a little love your way via the give forward website. Stay positive and have the happiest of holidays.

GO MAXWELL!!! (The name of one of my nephews too.)