The bloody nose, the ear ant and the splinters

I'm sure you find today's title intriguing. That's the sign of a good blog post - capture the audience right away. While this title may sound like the next Narnia movie, it's actually a description of things that happened to Paul yesterday! Allow me to explain. First, when I got home from work yesterday the boys were all having a great time playing. We had dinner and then we were back outside to play. On the trampoline the guys play some kind of game that involves crashing and smashing into each other until someone bleeds or cries. Paul lost round one when he caught a smack to the nose, and a nosebleed resulted. We got it cleared up quickly, but he looked like he had been in a firefight in Mogadishu in which he took great pride. Back on the trampoline a little later, Paul started complaining about his foot. I looked and saw three or four splinters in there. He wailed and moaned until Leigh was able to de-splinter his foot (I think the splinters actually fell out). Again, he strutted about like a rooster bragging about his bravery and courage during "surgery." Finally, and my favorite, we all rode our bikes down to the neighborhood "mudhole." After playing for a while, we came on home. Soon as we got in the house Paul started screaming about his ear - "something is in there! it hurts! get it out." We weren't sure what to think, but after a minute, we saw a fireant crawl out of his ear. We don't think it stung him, but he was right...there was something in there. The ant had apparently crawled into Paul's bike helmet when he threw it down at the mudhole. Now, one might think that all these events are terrible. But, 1) these are all events precipitated by the possession of an XY chromosome combination during the 5th year of life, 2) Paul was feeling good enough yesterday to engage in these risky behaviors. For the latter, we were very pleased.

A more serious Paul update...he does continue to battle through a bout of pain or two during the day. Motrin takes care of it, but it does remind us that we are dealing with something. I talked with our doc yesterday to discuss our current plan. We plan to wait on the MIBG results (which would be Th afternoon at the earliest but probably Friday). That means that we could start the new therapy next Monday, and do the two-week cycle. That's definitely the plan if the MIBG scan shows disease; if it's negative like these other studies...I really don't know what we'll do. The other important variable in this is a more exact date for re-enrollment in the clinical trial. I have been told that the national study directors will release the trial for re-enrollment in 1-2 weeks. It would then go through the Cook review board on July 6. Enrollment could begin right after. So, the timing is still good and would actually synch up well with our next month's plans for treatment, rescans, etc. These dates, of course, are all of our planning. God has His own, and we continue to trust Him in all these things. Pray on...you're up to date!