Aug 5 2020 - by Erin Gourley

Thank you all so much for your love and support. You are helping give us the strength to support Lucas. Brian's right it's hard to hold it together but we have to for Lucas. He truly is a warrior. I've never seen anything like it. The other night on round 3 of chemo (5 different chemo's-nights 1, 3 and tonight night 5 are the hardest) I was playing Yahtzee with him. He couldn't roll the dice because the pain in his wrist joints was too much. He got frustrated but didn't cry. Then, he couldn't stand on his legs due to the pain to get on the potty next to his bed. Again, he was in shocking pain but didn't cry. I, on the other hand, had to go in the bathroom and cried and read your posts. They gave me strength. Many of you wrote 'you've got this'. So thank you we need to keep this mind set. 

Also, thanks for all the sweet gifts for Lucas. Thank you for making connections to specialists and others going thru AML. We need the help because this is going to be a long road. We are in the first induction phase of 10 days of intense chemo and we will have 4-5 more phases (a month each) of chemo, transfusions, etc. He will up and down but if anyone can beat this it's Lucas. 

In 10 days we should know more about what's next. We get his bone marrow results to see if he needs a transplant (praying he does not). We also receive the genetic results which will tell us what level of care he's going to need months 2-4. There are different specialists depending on the results. We've heard Seattle Childrens, St. Judes, Cincinnati Childrens, Dana Farber, TX Childrens and MD Anderson have the leading AML specialists so your connections and referrals are so helpful to these places. He will be in the hospital the whole time because the risks of infection are so high. 

Please keep praying I swear I can feel it in my bones it's working!!!!
Love to you all.