Parker Undergoes Tests Tomorrow

As always there is quite a bit to write today, especially since I did not write about Italy and Parker yesterday. However, I want to make sure that I write about our upcoming day.

See, tomorrow morning Parker has his first set of major tests. Parker will have a MRI of his brain, CT Scan of his chest, Ultra Sound of his stomach and his first bone marrow aspiration. All of these tests will be performed under a general anesthesia. In addition, while we are at the hospital, Parker will receive his ADAGEN injection. We are of course not expecting any surprises as a results of the tests. Of course his MRI and Ultra Sound should come back clean. The CT Scan should show some scarring as a result of the proteinosis and infections he had prior to his diagnosis and the bone marrow aspiration should come back showing that Parker does a very good job at producing BM CD34+ cells.

The bone marrow aspiration will be the most painful but he will be asleep for it. Adults generally stay awake for a bone marrow aspiration so it should not be too bad. We were told that the MRI should hake about 45 minutes, and the aspiration and CT SCAN should be about 10-15 minutes each. So, we are hoping that he will not have to be asleep for too long.

We will be going to the hospital for 9am (Milan time tomorrow morning) and they will most likely begin the procedures soon after. Because of the anesthesia, we will have to get up this coming morning at 3am so that Parker can have a bottle. He will have to go under on an empty stomach so he may be cranky in the morning.

Also, on Friday Parker had to undergo an ECG to check his heart function for the the anesthesiologist. He did pass it but he did struggle most of the time as he tried to play with the wires, pulling them off whenever he could. The cardiologist laughed at the reading when he saw it but said it should be okay.

I do promise to write tomorrow about how his tests went. I think we should get the results in 24 hours after taking them, so you may have to wait for that. As soon as this phase of the treatment is over, I will write about everything else that has bee going on here. However, for now, this is what I am focusing on.

Most of you would have noticed that I did post a link to last years article yesterday. I have decided that I will continue to do that each day. So, you can click here to read the article from one year ago today. It is always nice to look back.