Ryan's story

Ryan was diagnosed with Stage 4 High Risk Neuroblastoma N-MYC amplified in July 2008. He was out of treatment for just over a year when in November 2010 our lives were again turned upside down when we discovered the disease had returned in his bones and bone marrow. After a year of treatment re-staging scans in November 2011 showed that he had again achieved remission.

However just 3 months later, in February 2012, end of treatment scans gave us the devastating news that the disease has returned, this time with a tumour near his spine. In March Ryan started 4 weeks of radiotherapy followed by chemotherapy. Re-staging scans in May and August showed no evidence of disease. On the 4th September 2012 Ryan received treatment in Tubingen for a haplo-identical stem cell transplant. He is a happy, active boy who is now enjoying life to the full.

Wednesday 26 September 2012

Day +8

Yesterday was much the same as the past few days.  But this morning Ryan woke up and wasn't his usual chatty self. He eventually admitted his throat hurt and once the morphine was increased he started to feel better.

The doctor reviewed his blood results and said that the first signs of engraftment were showing.  He told us that he expected to see an increase in white blood cells in the next day or two but at the sametime we should expect Ryan to develop a fever as the cells cause inflammation around the body as part of a healing/cleansing process.  Although this is expected and a good sign it can also cause problems such as fluid in the lungs and the fever has to be treated as a potential infection and so anti-biotics will be given.

And so this afternoon Ryan spiked a fever and was started in anti-biotics. Unfortunatelt he reacted to the antibiotics by itching all over and getting hives!  He was given anti-histamine and this settled down quite quickly but this has probably been his worst day so far.

Having said that he has managed to have a quick x-box game on-line with his mate Adam who has literally just walked back in the door from treatment in America!  And at the same time he was having his laser therapy!  

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