Tanner's Journey: Holding Pattern

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Holding Pattern

Tanner had his last maintenance chemo at Cooks Children's Oncology Department on Monday and we are on "hold" for anything else right now.

I've received emails from Dr. Barlogie and Bonnie from the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy in Little Rock and they are in the process of getting the doctors who need to be involved in Tanner's treatment signed up for Texas Medicaid before they reschedule him to return for his restaging tests.

So, in the meantime, he is getting a break from any treatment right now.

I just got a text from our friend Shirley and she had her restaging tests done this week at UAMS and the doctor told her this morning - no signs of Multiple Myeloma anywhere in her body! Yay!!

Now we just pray that Tanner receives the same news when we get there!

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live... Mark Twain

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Recap

One summer day in 2009 my 17 year old son, Tanner Walker, decided to go swimming at a friend's house. While walking across the yard, his left leg collapsed and his tibia snapped completely in two.

Of course we were upset and worried that afternoon when I rushed him to the Emergency Room but I have to admit that the thought of cancer never entered our minds until the doctor came back into the room and told us "There's no easy was to say this other than just say it. There is a tumor in the bone".

They put Tanner in a splint and sent us home and over the next two weeks he saw several doctors who told us it "might be cancer - or it might be nothing" and eventually surgery was performed to repair the break and a biopsy was taken.

After the procedure, the surgeon came out and told us that the good news was that it wasn't cancer - but the bad news was that they didn't know what it was.

Two weeks later, my cell phone rang and it was the doctor wanting to speak to me and explain that they had found a Pathologist who had, finally, diagnosed the lesion as Multiple Myeloma. Can you imagine? I was at work and at that very moment my world, my son's world, our family's world - were all forever changed.

After a full body scan was performed Tanner was found to have hundreds - "innumerable"- lesions in the bones throughout his body and the Oncologist told me (privately) that at the stage he was at, he most likely only had two years to live.

Luckily, we were referred to the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy at UAMS in Little Rock Arkansas where Tanner underwent some of the most aggressive treatment available including chemotherapy and two stem cell transplants. Now, over three years later, he remains in full remission.

He receives maintenance treatment here locally and is back to living the life of a young man... A young man with Multiple Myeloma.

Tanner's Journey

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Holding Pattern

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