To FW for a Blood Draw

I took Paul to FW this morning for "day 8" labs. When I asked if he would rather have an arm poke rather than a port access...he shocked me by choosing the arm poke. He shocked me again by actually sitting still rather expressionless as the nurse poked his arm deftly and drew out a tube full of blood! Amazing. It's hard for me to do that! Anyway, all lab results that came back while we were there looked fine. After he beat the Child Life staff in UNO four or five times, we were on the road to Whataburger.

Here is a big prayer request...on Sunday Paul began to deal with lower back/hip pain. We began to treat it with Motrin which does/did the trick, but it keeps coming back. It really hurts him and disturbs his sleep (and everyone else's). I came home with an oral Morphine that we can use to better control the pain. The big question is why is he having the pain? I have talked to several docs, and the main opinion is that this is inflammation brought about by the therapy. More specifically, the immune system is now going after the tumor sites (e.g., in his hip area) and causing the pain. Of course, it's speculation since there are so few patients to compare him to. The other concern is that this is the effect of progressive disease. Our doc seems to think otherwise, but we are out there in medical no-man's land so it is disconcerting. All that to say, pray for controllable pain, and pray that this therapy is working. I know you are out there praying. (=:

BTW, thanks to you "Amazing Neighbors!!!" You know who you are, and you know what you did! Very cool. (-: