Submitted by
Mike (29-Jan-10) Problem:
A Pastor friend email me this my wife & I prayed Prayer Request:
Please start praying for a little boy named Wes. His mother was a pharmacist at the CVS (Southside of Indy) where my friend was working. Her son had cancer a year ago and after many treatments had been doing very well until this week. I think he went for an MRI yesterday and they’ve learned that cancer is back but in a different location which also isn’t good because that makes them think it is just going to move. Apparently with the treatment he had previously they are not even sure if radiation will be an option this time. This little boy is 5 years old and although I have only met the mother (and Wes) one time my heart is breaking for them. Wes has to go for a spinal tap next Thursday and if they find cancer in the fluid more than likely they will not be able to do anything for him as far as cancer treatment. If they find no cancer in the fluid, they might be able to remove the new tumor and possibly do radiation – so our prayer right now needs to be that they won’t find any cancer there. His mother wants to spend as much time as she possibly can with him but at this point she all she can do is cry. Here is the post from his caringbridge site today….
I am just going to post to give you some details and some specifics to pray for. We have spoken again to Dr. Shih. He is leaning towards removing the tumor and then radiating with proton beam. The problem.. pretty much there are many.. is that we have already exhausted all of the really good options when we treated him the first time. They do this on purpose.. to nail medullo with everything you know that works so that it doesn't come back. We are pretty sure.. although we will be meeting with Dr Chang.. that we have maxed out on the radiation. He can do very localized proton beam radiation to the site of the new tumor since it is not in the field of any previous boost. The problem with radiating the brain and spine more is that he can get radiation necrosis... where normal living cells start to die.
All of this has one HUGE caveat. We need our spinal tap to be clear. If he has medullo cells floating in his CSF.. the cancer has already spread again and it may not be all that beneficial to take this tumor out. Then we would be going towards other clinical trials. Our spinal tap is on Thursday. So this is specifically right now what we need to pray for.
Otherwise, I cannot even begin to describe how this feels. I have been walking around feeling like there is a huge whole from my heart to my stomach. I want to spend every minute with Wes but when I do I have difficulty controlling the tears. He still doesn't know. And it breaks my heart to tell him. How do you deal with being told your kid has a less than 5 percent chance?
And to give him any kind of a chance involves putting him through what he for the most part has already done once already. And it wasn't fun the first time.
Once again.. sorry this is so down. It's nearly impossible to be positive when I don't have too many success stories for this particular situation to gleen some type of hope from.
Thanks in advance for your prayers….I know the family will appreciate any prayers going up for them right now.
