The braces are off and the hair is back!

Gideon looking healthy, with hair and no bracesI said that there would be one more post on this blog and then, unless there’s something big to report, that would be the end of it.  Of course, no story on earth ever really ends.  “And they all lived happily ever after” won’t be true until we get to Heaven.

HOWEVER, this part of the story is over for now.  I’ve been waiting and waiting to use the title for today’s post.  Yesterday we finally got into see Dr. Anant Kumar, Gideon’s spine doctor/neurosurgeon, and he gave the go-ahead for him to take off the braces completely.  While Dr. Rifkin, the oncologist, is a total ray of sunshine, Dr. Kumar tends very much to the darker view of things.  He said that Gideon’s Tae Kwon Do activities are probably now in the past, that there will always be weak spots on his backbone, and that the readings of scans are always a result of human interpretation.  He pointed out a space on Gideon’s tailbone that still has not grown back, saying that represented a “lesion” that was still there.  To me, the word “lesion” means “tumor.”  I usually find myself trying to argue with him when he makes these rather dire statements, and yesterday was no exception, but what’s the point?  He thinks what he thinks.  I was a bit down in the mouth after this appointment, to be honest, but Gideon was quite upbeat.  He pointed out something I’d forgotten:  the tailbone tumor (or TT) did not get radiation therapy back in May since it wasn’t threatening his spine and they were trying to give him as little radiation as possible.  So that tumor didn’t go away completely until well into chemo, several months later.  I would hope that in a few more months that bone will have regrown, too.  But there’s a limit to how many scans can and should be done.  There’s a third PET scan this Friday and the monthly visit with Dr. Rifkin next Wednesday.  We expect there to be no new news from either of those.  Now comes the anti-climactic but almost harder part:  getting back to normal physically.  Dr. Kumar gave Gideon some neck-strengthening exercises to do, as he hasn’t been able to turn his head since May.  He suggested swimming, so we need to get going on a rec center membership.  School starts on Tuesday for Gideon, and he’s taking 18 hours.  The internship that he didn’t get to do last summer is pretty much on for this one.  We’re through this chapter of the story, but there are lots of new ones to come.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and expressions of concern.