Dr. Kohn/Dr. Allen

First, I want to thank anyone that saw my message yesterday and prayed for James' line. This morning before going to his appointments, I did another dressing change and decided to try to flush it again...fully believing it wasn't going to make any difference, but why not give it a try? Well, it flushed with no problem. I could not believe it. I was really thankful for it when I found out that Dr. Wisoff's office didn't want to take care of it but felt we should have dealt with it before we came.



We met with Dr. Kohn today, the pediatric endocrinologist. She came to her clinic today just for James. She spent quite some time talking about the issues that might arise from the surgery and what we need to watch for. She was very thorough and I am confident that James will be in good hands after surgery. Aside from the surgeon, this will be the most important doctor. James' tumor sits in the hypothalamus and near the pituitary gland. These areas control many body functions like temperature, desire to eat, water control, etc. Bascially, Dr. Wisoff will go in and remove as much tumor as possible and totally mess this area up in the process. It will be Dr. Kohn's job to come behind him and try to fix everything he messed up. How well all these problems are controlled will determine how quickly James will get out of the hospital and what problems he will deal with long term.

When we finished with that appointment, we didn't have a lot of time before our appointment with Dr. Allen, so we just picked up a quick lunch at a deli and ate it on some steps nearby. Here is the deli and our "dining step."






Then we met with Dr. Allen, the pediatric oncologist. He was very kind. One interesting part of the meeting was when we all looked over James' MRI scans. We were looking at the November 2007 MRI (the one which first showed growth) and then the March 2008 MRI. He showed us an area that had actually shrank or even disappeared between the two MRIs. He asked again, "What were you doing during that time?" I told him antineoplastons. He said, "Whatever it was, it was doing something." Dr. Allen had us sign a consent to have James' tumor frozen. That will allow us to have it tested after the surgery and use targeted gene therapy to treat it in the future.

Tomorrow, James has preoperative testing and the meets with Dr. Burstin, the pediatrician who will clear him for surgery.

Today ended up being a very long day also. James acquired my bad headache that I had last night and this morning. Here he is waiting to see Dr. Allen and then insisted that we go home next.



So, we headed back home after the appointments, found some pizza to take with us, and will get to bed early. I don't think we are quite recovered from the trip here. Hopefully, we can find "Ground Zero" tomorrow, then maybe the Statue of Liberty of Friday.

Thanks again for all your prayers.