Prayers for 6 month biopsy
by Erin Gourley
It’s hard to believe we’ve been back home 7 1/2 weeks. We’ve cherished every single day having Lucas home and all being together. Lucas is our miracle child and he’s an inspiration to us daily.
You all have helped perform these miracles by joining us in prayer and giving so much of your time, energy and prayer to Lucas all year. July 30th marks 1 year of his diagnosis. My it’s been a year….
Tuesday, July 27th-
Tuesday morning Lucas will have his next biopsy. The same procedure and tests that he had May 27th. They will put him under around 10am and send all the samples from Dells to CHOP for analysis. They will repeat the same tests of pathology, engraftment assessment and checking FLT3. Praying so hard that Lucas will be clean and clear of all disease.
The road ahead will include biopsies every 2 months thru the first year of transplant. Then, every 6 months. He will not be deemed ‘cured’ until 5 years from transplant. We’re hoping you all can join us to pray hard for his healing and being clean, clear and cured forever of cancer, leukemia, disease.
Healing & Recovery-
We’ve been settling into our new ’normal’ back in Austin. Lucas goes in every few weeks to Dells for labs, to meet with the eye doctor, and neurologist. The team down here is in communication with the CHOP leads from each of the departments which has worked out great.
Unfortunately, Lucas’s Papilledema (increased eye pressure from the spinal fluid pushing against the optic nerves) has not changed and is still exceedingly high. They increased the diamox medication again so praying this will help resolve the issue so there will be no vision impact. We go in for the next assessment August 10th.
Lucas is thrilled to be home and sleeping in his own bed. His hair is growing back, and he’s laughing more each day (he’s got the cutest laugh). He knows his limitations with his recovery as well. He gets tired, winded and needs to take naps for a few hours each day. He does play tennis once a week with Coach Dave which is the highlight of his week! His other favorite things to do are playing card and video games with Jack. Jack’s been a champ taking one for the team and not doing a whole lot each day knowing Lucas can’t. Jack would love to be like his friends and go on vacation, go to camp, etc, but given Lucas’s weakened immune system (every vaccination he’s ever had was wiped out) that’s not an option. Jack’s been an unsung hero this past year and we are so proud of his fight, resilience and love for his brother. Dylan and Lucas are also very cute together and Lucas has coined them ’the bone marrow team’
We are forever grateful to all of you for giving us strength this past year and holding us up. Our family experienced extreme trauma and operated in survival mode struggling to breathe at times. We’re home and learning how to come down and live appreciating every single day and operating in the present not holding on the past. Your prayers and commitment to Lucas and our family were miraculous and helped save our son because God heard your prayers. There were so many times when we were told he wouldn’t make it and the collective power of your prayers demonstrated that he would in fact live and make it.
Monday 8:30pm EST Prayer for Lucas-
We hope you can join us (again :) to pray for Lucas before he goes in Tuesday am. We’ll take any prayer any time for him, but our collective prayers together have moved mountains this year so….
Prayers for Lucas-
- Clear, clean biopsy results. May there be NO cancer, leukemia or disease anywhere in his body.
- 100% engraftment of Dylan’s cells in Lucas.
- Papilledema eye pressure please go away
- Continued medical guidance for the medical team for his eye treatment and maintenance drugs (he’s back on Gilteritnib)
- Full healing of his body and organs from all the chemo and radiations
- Please may Lucas be cured so he can grow old in good health forever free of disease.
