What a Week

Wow. What a week.

Mason went in for his third, and what was supposed to be his final, round of chemo on May 1^st. Three days into his chemo, however, my mom asked the doctors to do an MRI. Because of his previous fungal infection, which showed up in an MRI after his second round of chemo, my mom wanted to make sure he wasn’t taking any unnecessary medications for that infection or anything else. What they found on that scan gave us a bit of a scare. The fungal infection was still there, or so we thought. There were countless other things it could have been, such as a bacterial infection, the fungus again, or even mold. Some of the potential problems on that list were slow growing and very difficult to treat. We were very nervous.

It’s amazing how calm and positive Mason stayed throughout this entire mini battle. He would text my mom inspirational little messages telling her that everything would be okay, and that he would overcome this obstacle just like he has overcome everything else. He was constantly reassuring my dad, Parker, Morgan and me. It seemed like the one person who you would think needed the pep talks, guidance, and comfort was the one giving it! Truly ironic if you ask me.

After the discovery of these spots, they stopped chemo and began to administer the most basic of all antifungals. Over the weekend, they took a sample from his nose in order to do a biopsy on that to find the cause of the spots showing up in his MRI. Because nothing showed up there and a second MRI revealed that these spots showed no improvement with the antifungal treatment, they decided on Monday that Mason was going to undergo a surgery to look at his sinuses. They also needed to do a lumbar puncture at this time to get an idea of what was going on in his spine to make sure no fungus was there.

On that Monday, I left school early and took a train down to CHOP. My parents had barely been texting that day and I needed to know that Mason was okay. I got there and my dad met me and took me to the 4^th floor to the OR waiting room. They had a big flat screen TV, which displayed the initials of all of the current patients somewhere in the OR and their status, discharged or still undergoing surgery. When I got there, my parents informed me that his sinus procedure revealed nothing but inflammation. Since that did not tell the doctors anything or give them anything to biopsy, they needed to go directly to the source. After finding nothing in his nose, they had to open up his head. On Monday, my brother had brain surgery.

Though waiting in the OR was tough, we were greeted by his neurosurgeon after an hour or so (it felt like four) with hopeful news: he did not see signs of a fungal infection in Mason’s brain. They took a sample of the center of one of the lesions found on the MRI, but according to the doctor, it just looked like dead tissue. It was as if something was there before, but it was possible that his body had fought off the infection and left only dead tissue behind. While this news gave us some hope, we still had a lot of waiting to do. We needed to wait for the Infectious Diseases team at CHOP keep an eye on the sample and see if any kind of infection would grow. Waiting is too difficult, and I’m too impatient. It was hard to not know what was wrong, but things were looking good on Tuesday according to the doctors, and on Wednesday, we were to get the “final” results.

That Wednesday we were informed that nothing grew at all. Wow. A weight had been lifted off of Mason’s shoulders. Obviously he has a bunch of other ones, but this weight was a very important one to get rid of. It weighed heavily on Mason and that weight extended to all of the rest of us.

What about that round of chemo? It was stopped three days in. Is Mason going to finish it? Here’s the thing… due to this minor setback, Mason’s timeline has been slightly altered. Originally, we were aiming for his bone marrow transplant in mid-June. Things have changed, however, and I don’t think I will be seeing him at my graduation. Mason’s oncologist, Dr. Greene came in tonight to inform us of the new, very tentative, plan. Because of his special and mildly unusual circumstances, she had gotten a very large team together to discuss the best options for Mason. These doctors came to the conclusion that because Mason will not need treatment for a fungus or any other infection which could take weeks or even months to heal, they are going to keep him here and wait for his counts to drop yet again. (They were giving him injections to boost these counts in order for surgery to be possible and to see if his own body could fight off his problem.) After that happens, they will take another scan of his brain to see how that is looking. They will keep Mason at CHOP over the next three weeks, approximately, without administering chemo.

As long as Mason’s brain images improve and Johns Hopkins has room for him, he will be dropping in for that transplant about a week early. It is this new development that makes me believe that he won’t be at my graduation, which is okay with me. If he can’t be there because his brain is healthy, his leukemia cell counts are low and almost nonexistent, and he is in route to a bone marrow transplant, that’s okay with me.

Mason went through a lot that Monday. He went into surgery expecting only a lumbar puncture and a sinus biopsy. When he woke up hours later in the ICU, he had an almost three inch long incision on his head from where the doctors went in. He was nauseous after the procedures and was also in a lot of pain. He’s doing so much better now, and of course that good news only helps. I spent the night with him last night. He was smiling and laughing, and we were goofing off. This little scare and setback turned into a near blessing.

In times like these, it is so easy for people to forget all of the reasons that they are lucky. My family, on the other hand, has discovered that it is much easier to recognize and appreciate your blessings. We were very nervous, without a doubt, but it has gotten better. With the nerve-wracking news we got previously came good news that filled us again with hope. That feeling is a good one to maintain: hope. It keeps you up when you’re feeling down and ensures that you believe in the power of prayer and healing. Mason will be healed, and through the scary procedures that he had, we are reassured of that. He’s so strong and continues to only become stronger. He’s our hero.