Pictures from his final (full) day yesterday. He got out this morning, but ended up napping most of the day. Not a side effect of chemo, but because the nurses kept him awake all last night playing UNO!

Here's the door art they all signed for him - quite the souvenir:

Chase's self proclaimed "brotha from anotha motha":

Lots of cute nurses:

The artistic(?) shot. The guy in the back...needs to get out more.
Yes he really wanted to pose that way.

All pictures are clickable - click 'em to enlarge.

MRI scheduled for Friday the 12th, at 8PM.

:: thinking positive ::

Time to celebrate!

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*
bb'bbb*bbbbbbb+bbb#bbbbbbb~bbb*b b
bbb`bbb\bbb%bbbbb\bbb*bbb+bb^bb bb
bbb/bbbbbb}bbb~bbbbb/bb^bbb~bbb#bbb
bbbbb+bbbbb-bbb^b*bb-bb b#bbbbb{bbb
bb~bbbbb^bbbb*bbbb.bbb}bbbb>bbbbbbb
.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*


Thus endeth my lame efforts at ASCII confetti.

Stop laughing!

Today, er, yesterday was Chase's last full day of Chemo, so there was much rejoicing. And picture taking. And more picture taking. And more with this camera, and some with that one... Now if blogger would actually let me post pictures tonight, I'd do so, but that will have to wait until until it's fixed. Meanwhile I'll be working on the red-eye reduction. Really, do they keep y'all totally in the dark there? Wow...

Judith, Mom, and I talked quite a bit with Chase's radiation oncologist tonight (mouths "sorry" to his 6 year old daughter waiting impatiently at home). He feels confident that Chase will do best with the Proton radiation down at MD Anderson, and is following up with the insurance company, still proceeding sslloowwllyy through the approval process.

Chase needs a final 2 hour MRI before the docs can decide just how much radiation treatment he'll need. If they see "complete response" (no sign of the tumor), he'll need just 3 1/2 weeks of daily treatment in Houston. If there's still something hanging around, it'll be more. With his 75% reduction after the first half of chemo, we hope/think/pray he'll have that complete response.

Then we break out the real confetti!

After a bit of back and forth (and a little wangling from Judith), Chase is back in the hospital for his final chemo. Yeah!

His numbers didn't bounce back as quickly as last time, which I guess is understandable, but still... The first doctor who reviewed his labs tried to send him home, but Judith got a copy of the report, noticed it was just slightly out of range, and sweet talked Dr. Gold into letting Chase stay and start chemo. Heck, they'd already started the fluids - hate to waste a needle stick!

Chase is such an old hat at this now he wheeled his IV pole down to admitting and got himself registered while Judith traipsed back and forth to the car a couple times to unload all their stuff. He's back on the 5th floor of the Children's hospital again, so he'll get to bug all his favorite nurses one last time.

I last talked to Judith at 7PM and they still hadn't actually started the chemo, but I trust by now the day's dose is done. He'll be in tomorrow for sure and he may be in a third night, depending. Last time he got out after two, though, so we'll see. I know Chase (along with everyone else) is ready to get this DONE!