Tuesday, December 9, 2014

One Year Tribute

December 09, 2013 is a day I will never forget.  It started out as a normal Monday morning.  I arrived at work around 7:30 AM as usual and began my routine for the day.  Shortly there after things went to hell in a hand basket as I received a panicked call from Meghan Hampel that Evan was complaining that his right arm hurt really bad.  The family was at  a church event Sunday night and during some normal rough housing that boys do, his brother had accidentally tripped Evan and he had fallen on his right arm.  I told her that if it was bothering him that badly they needed to take him to an emergency room for an evaluation to see if he had broken a bone or just sprained something.  I knew we had an excellent pediatric department at one of the local hospitals, Health Park here in Fort Myers.  After a few hours I received a call from Meghan at the hospital and she had some very bad news; not only was his upper arm broken, it appeared that there was a tumor in the bone that lead up to Evan breaking it so easily.  They thought it was a cancer called Osteosarcoma but they needed to do a biopsy of the bone to determine.
Anyone following this journey knows that Evan has been on a journey in 2014 fighting the beast known as Osteosarcoma and so far this journey has been successful.  It was hard fought and had moments of panic and fright as well as joyous occasions.  We have more to accomplish as Evan grows but as long as we can keep the beast from returning, the future operations necessary to maintain a right arm that is as normal as possible will seem somewhat unremarkable.

A trip on Friday to the Orthopedic Oncology surgeon went very well, the lower portion of the allograft is starting to bone over.  Evan is producing bone cells again since he ceased chemo.  One area of worry is the top portion of the allograft where it is attached to the upper ball portion.  This area does not contain a growth plate and there are no new cells growing there.  The screws that hold the allograft to the ball will eventually loosen to the point that surgical intervention will be necessary.  There is already some loosing happening and we will have to keep a close eye on it.  Other than that, he has better than normal movement in the arm and it is expected that he will continue to gain strength and mobility.  Our hope is a few more years of growth and we can replace the allograft with an expandable titanium rod which will be permanent.

I want to thank all the people who have helped Evan during this journey as well as all the people following his journey through this blog and on Facebook.  The outpouring of concern and love has helped the entire family to overcome this frighting disease.  We know that cancer can return at anytime so we must be vigilant and follow the scanning regiment closely.  Evan is scheduled in early January for full scans and I will report the findings when we receive them.

Everyone have a happy, healthy and merry Christmas!  Our hope is 2015 will be a booster year for us and everyone we know!