More About Nathan...

Bill and I have found it very difficult to sleep and function the past few days. The news of Nathan hit hard. Not as hard as it hit his family. Then little Celestine is heading into the maintenance portion. Heather was heading into maintenance about his same time. It all hits so close to home. We thought that since we had such a good outcome with chemo that we were on the downward slide. For 5 months, things were good. It is crazy how these two have entwined themselves in our hearts.

I walk around the house on some days and I feel like Heather was never here. I see photos and it seems like so long since I have seen her that she was never really here. It seems like the photos don't look like her at all. Other days, it seems like she was just here and she has gone off to class. She is just on vacation or house sitting somewhere. She will be back in the morning. There is still not a moment when I don't think about her.The weather here is finally cooling off. I was thinking how good it felt to walk out at night and have it been cooler. Then I realized part of the reason why it seems like I had no Spring. I didn't. Spending a month in the hospital on a daily basis will tend to throw you off time and seasons. Bill and I both feel like we have lost months of this year. From March till about August it really seems to be a blur.

Lil Pea is on the verge of crawling. She gets up on her hands and knees adn then goes backward. She is still getting up during the night and her parents are trying to let her cry through it. It is a little rough getting sleep in our household right now. She is a true joy and we have no idea of how we would be surviving right now if Pea was not living here with us. She is our sunshine each day. She has the most amazing smile that melts your heart.
Here's the latest news from Irene about Nathan:

I must begin with the most wonderful news... NATHAN AND RACHELE ARE ENGAGED.

We have decided to go with the chemotherapy that is a clinical trial. It includes three medicines: Gemcitabine, Oxaliplatin and Paclitaxel (this one he had last time). He will be able to do this one as an outpatient. He will go one day every two weeks to USC day hospital. They will draw blood in the morning, then do pre-hydration and medications to help with side effects (ie. zofran for nausea and steroids). The chemo runs for approximately 4 hours, then post hydration. It will be a long day, approx 8-10 hours, but it is better than staying at the hospital overnight. Then he will go home for two weeks to recuperate. He will do up to 12 cycles depending on when his tumor markers go back down to normal. Once they normalize, he will do a couple follow up cycles. So this could take anywhere from 3 - 6 months depending on how he responds.

As soon as he recovers from the last cycle, they will do another cardiothoracic surgery. I asked if they can take out all the lymph nodes in the subcarnal region; however, the location of these lymph nodes (behind the heart) does not make that possible. They will remove the affected lymph node and others surrounding it that they can get to.

Another thing I learned is that I have been mistaken about the results of the biopsies of his chest and neck recently. They are not "benign" masses. In fact, they are all "mature teratoma" with traces of cancer in them. There are four main types of non-seminoma germ cell tumors: embryonal carcinoma, yolk sac carcinoma, choriocarcinoma and teratoma. Most tumors are mixed with two different types; however, Nathan has all four types of cancer in his body. They are hiding in this teratoma (which kind of looks like scar tissue) and keep coming back to fight like a little terrorist.

Thank you for your prayers as we are nearly 5 months into our new "normal". Thank you for faithfully keeping up on how we are doing and reading this. It really helps to be able to write my thoughts down.