Visit to Labor and Delivery (or I feel like a big whiner)

First of all, everything's fine. So last night I had some really bad stomach pains that reminded my of how I felt when Beckett was born. Plus my blood pressure was way up for several hours. Normal for me during this pregancy is 120's/70's but they were in the 140's/80's and 90's even after I rested. So I called the on-call Dr. this morning who, of course, told me to go to labor and delivery for some labs and an NST.

When I got there (after laying in the hospital bed for 30 minutes waiting for them to take my blood pressure) my BP was 117/72, the lowest it's been in days. All my labs were great, even better than before and the baby was awesome on the monitor. So basically, I was perfectly healthy (but paranoid) pregnant lady using up valuable resources. I feel like a big baby. To make matters worse, the whole time I was watching CNN and there were Hillary and Obama taking about how expensive health care is. Not that I wanted something to be wrong, and the nurses and the on-call doctor were really nice and reassured me that it was right to come in, it's just that I hate wasting people's time.

Yeah!

Our meeting with Dr. Fisher went as planned. He recommends holding off on further chemotherapy since his scan was stable. He showed us the scans and explained the August 07 vs. Feb 08 scan but it was kind of hard to really see. The Feb scan definitely shows a reduction in "enhancement" and he was really pleased. So the plan is to have an MRI every three months and see the opthalmologist every three months also. Trish recommended we stagger these visits to get a check in every six weeks which I think is a great idea. Beckett will keep his port until we get one more stable MRI and then we can remove it. (We could also wait for two stable MRIs). He will need to go to Packard once a month to get his port flushed.

On other news I am now 35 weeks pregnant. Everything is going well. We are getting really excited in preparation. We have the baby's area all set up, and have acquired most of the gizmos we'll need. The only task remaining is convincing the cat that the bassinet is not his bed.

Even better

I had a call from Trish who is the neurooncolgy NP today. After the tumor board review Beckett's scans they felt that there was even some shrinkage of his tumor. We will meet with them next week to get a plan for monitoring but this is just more evidence that we can hold off for awhile if scans and optho appointments are good.

The baby is also doing well and staying put. I am exactly 34 weeks pregnant and feel good except for this awful cough that will not go away.

Beckett is in love with the digital camera. He gets to play with it when he goes to the potty. Here is a self portrait he took yesterday.

Stable!!!!

We just got the call that Beckett's tumor is "absolutely rock solid stable" from the MRI in August!! We'll meet with Dr. Fisher and Trish to on Thursday to discuss a plan of action!

Quick update.

At labor and delivery yesterday all the labs were normal again and even better than before. The baby was looking great on the monitor. I go back on Wednesday for a growth scan and to do all the labs again. The doctor even gave me the go ahead to take Beckett to his MRI today if my BP was good this morning which it was. We are heading up to Stanford in a little while and hopefully the MRI will go through with no problems. If his optic glioma is stable (or smaller!) we will have a really good reason to hold off on further chemo treatments. Then we would just monitor his OG with MRIs every three months and opthalmology visits every three months. He hasn't been able to complete an MRI since August we this one just HAS to happen.

Baby News

Just so everyone knows we like to keep it exciting around here. Anyway, when I went to the doctor on Monday they drew some labs as a precautionary check for liver functions and platelets which are the marker for HELLP syndrome. Since I hadn't hear anything by Thursday I figured all was good. But around noon my doctor called and said she didn't like the looks of tsome of the labs and wanted me to go into labor and delivery. They said my liver enzymes were abnormally high (but not crazy high) and my platelets while still in the "normal" range were decreasing. In addition I also had protein in my urine which can be a sign of preeclampsia. They ended up keeping me overnight and releasing for the weekend on bedrest. As of now, the baby is doing great and looking good on the monitors so that is great. I go back on Monday for more labs. They gave me steroids for the baby's lungs and switched my anticoagulants to one that clears the body faster in case they need to do an emergency C-section. So now I am just chilling on the couch and waiting for Monday.

Also on Tuesday Beckett has an MRI to see how his chemo has been working and to possibly allow us to take a break for awhile. He seems to be getting a bit sniffly so I am HOPING he stays healthy and they can do the scan.