Next steps

We had our meeting with the pediatric oncologist this afternoon. We will be working with Dr. Meeker at Mountain State Tumor Institute (MSTI) just a short walk from my office and a short drive from our home. At this time Dr. Meeker feels we will not need to go to University of Utah for treatments, as MSTI is a member of the Children's Oncology Group Network and we will get the same level of care at MSTI as we would down in Salt Lake.

At this point in time we are waiting to get pathology reports back.That could take up to 2 weeks, but it's more likely we will get some results back next week. The pathology reports will indicate what type of disease we are facing, and will help us determine what kind of scans we need to do to assess the disease in his body. He could have another MRI, a CT scan, or a PET scan, I believe. After we have the results of the scan, we will be able to "stage" Desmond's disease, to determine where it is at in the body and how intense the treatments need to be.

Surgery to remove the disease isn't an option for Desmond, because Dr. Meeker fears that surgery to take the tumor out could cause disfigurement in his eye. We are most likely looking at a combination of chemo and radiation over a 6-9 month period, perhaps as long as 12 months. We don't know much about side effects from those treatments yet, we will discuss that with the doctor when we know more specifics about the disease.

The information we got today was very general, but Jeremy and I both felt incredibly relieved that we would be able to stay in Boise, especially so close to our house and my job. I can't speak for Jeremy, but I really liked Dr. Meeker and felt like he was completely capable of handling Desmond's care with integrity and heart. He really interacted well with Desmond, and Desmond slowly warmed up to him and his nurse, Arika. 

If you have questions, please feel free to ask them. Although we may not have answers right away, I'm sure we'll have a long list of questions to ask the doctor next time we see him and we can add your question to that list.

I have started a closed Facebook page to post updates about Desmond as well. The link is http://tinyurl.com/lnzt3nn.