Freddie and I traveled to Cincinnati the second week in March to meet Fred’s radiation oncologist and have some preliminary testing done. He’s going to receive radiation to the primary tumor bed (his left adrenal) to lower the risk of local recurrence. Even though he had a complete resection at diagnosis, the standard of care…

It’s been so long that I had to reread my last post to remind myself what was happening the last time I published an update! Fred stayed inpatient for another week, and was discharged home on February 9th. His main issue at the time of discharge was nausea and vomiting due to the thick mucus…

Fred was 7 months and 2 weeks old when he received his cancer diagnosis. Yesterday marked 7 months and 2 weeks from the day he was diagnosed. He has now officially been battling neuroblastoma longer than not, and he’s not done yet! We were admitted on January 15th (day -8) for his second round of…

I’m not exactly sure why it’s taken me so long to write this update. I think (a big) part of me was worried that I’d jinx Freddie’s recovery if I talked about how well he was doing. Long story short, Freddie did much better than anyone (health care team included) expected him to! Throughout the…

Getting to spend most of November at home was such a blessing! Our original transplant admission date was November 3rd, and we’re so thankful to our team for pushing that date back a few weeks and giving us some much-needed time at home. Freddie was admitted on November 24th for the next phase of treatment.…

Freddie ended up spending 3 weeks in the hospital during cycle 5, given his slow count recovery. No infectious source was identified to account for the fever on day 6 so once his counts began to improve, we were able to go home! During our extended stay, Freddie had restaging CT scans of his head,…

It’s with tear-filled eyes and a full heart that we say thank you to everyone who had a hand in making Freddie’s 5K the success that it was! Alex and Claire reached out a few weeks after Freddie was diagnosed with the idea for the event, wheels already fully in motion. I’m not typically one…

Freddie was admitted on October 2 for his final cycle of chemoimmunotherapy! He was due to start the cycle on September 29, but his counts (platelet and neutrophil) hadn’t recovered in time. We delayed the start by a few days, which allowed Fred some extra time at home to gain more weight and sleep in…

After seven nights in the hospital, we’re home! Freddie’s blood cultures were [again] positive for Staphylococcus aureus and his respiratory panel was positive for rhinovirus. He was positive for both of these bugs back in August when we were admitted after cycle 2. Since this is the second time he has been positive for S.…

Shortly after the last post, Freddie did spike a fever overnight and we headed back to the ER at Children’s. Thankfully blood cultures were negative, but he was still testing positive for rhinovirus. This virus is apparently pretty notorious for ramping back up when counts drop, so when Freddie got neutropenic, the virus resurged and…