Christmas Gift

Two of the medical teams we consulted for second opinions over the past two months wanted to see a PET scan of Emmett's tumor.  Our doctors here at Dana Farber have not requested a PET scan previously so they scheduled one for this past Wednesday.

A PET scan is a nuclear medicine study where the patient is injected with a radioactive isotope mixed with a sugar.  The patient is then put in a scanner which looks for parts of the body that are absorbing lots of sugar as indicated by concentrations of radiation.  When cancer is actively growing it needs a lot of energy which it absorbs in the form of blood sugar/glucose.  If a tumor sucks up lots of sugar it's thought to be active or growing.  If it doesn't absorb sugar it's thought to be dormant or dead.  Though not used nearly as much for diagnosing as an MRI or CT scan, the PET does provide an indication of the activity of the tumor not afforded by the more popular imaging studies.

Well, Emmett's PET/CT scan was conducted as planned on Wednesday.  And what did they see when looking at his left brachial plexus?  Absolutely nothing!  It looks completely cold, inactive, dormant, and hopefully dead (what we're really praying for).  This is the best news we've gotten in a long time!  There were a few things identified by the PET that they want to look at more closely including something in one of his lungs and some spotting around his spine, but the initial impression is that these are related to Emmett's surgeries and are otherwise benign.

Our oncologists are still anxious about Emmett's remaining tumor.  Prior to the scan they said that even if the PET came back cold it wouldn't change their desired course of action for Emmett, at best it gives a warm fuzzy that perhaps we're safe until the end of the year.  Because we don't have a baseline PET to compare it against the conclusions we can draw are limited -- perhaps Emmett's tumor looked cold even when it was actively growing.  There's only so much that one data point can tell us.

But for us this is huge.  This is the first indication that perhaps Emmett's tumor is responding, perhaps it is being kept in check.  Perhaps it is dying.  We hope and pray it is.

We still have a lot of hard decisions to make, but tonight we're hopeful, tonight we're celebrating.  Even though we're back in the hospital tonight with fever and neutropenia, even if we have to spend Christmas within the confines of Children's Hospital, we're hopeful, we're grateful, and we're thankful for this wonderful Christmas gift.

May we all find reasons to celebrate this wonderful Christmas season.