He's In!!! April 11, 2016

What a day this has been. We spent the morning at the hotel waiting. Waiting for a phone call that would let us know whether we got into the Ronald McDonald House (RMH) close to the hospital. Waiting for a phone call regarding appointment times. But most of all we were waiting for a call from
the doctor indicating whether Derek's MRD went up or down. If it went up, he would get on the clinical trial, and if he went down, we would move to plan B (or is it C or D or E by now?). Around 9:45 the phone rang. Was it THE CALL? No. Ophthalmology wanted to see him at 12:30 for a lengthy exam. I packed up the car, hoping we would not be returning to that hotel, hoping that we would get into the RMH. At 10:00 I got a call from housing sayings era was a room for us at the RMH! Thank you Lord! That's a good start. But we still waited for THE CALL. Finally, at 10:45 the phone rang. The display told me it was from the oncology clinic. I quickly answered before it finished the first ring. It was the secretary. Dr. Lacayo wanted to see us after the opthamology appointment. I asked her if she knew if Derek had qualified for the trial. She didn't, and said she couldn't give that information anyway. More waiting.

We checked out of the hotel and drove to the RMH for a quick tour before heading to the opthamology appointment. The opthamologist did a thorough exam and found that Derek's while the retina in his left eye is fine, his vision is 20/40 instead of the 20/15 it was two months ago. She also suspects that the mass in his left cheek is pushing the whole eyeball up, so it isn't just hypertropia as I thought. They will follow him closely.

Finally at 3:15, we headed to the oncology clinic, hoping for the news. We checked in. Derek had labs drawn. And we WAITED. Finally about 4:30 they called us back. The medical assistant asked if I had filled out the clinical trial paperwork. This was the first clue that he was in. Then she mentioned that they wanted to admit him to the hospital tonight. At last Dr. Lacayo came in and confirmed it. Derek's MRD had gone from .01 to .09. It was enough to get him in.

So as I write, Derek has now been admitted to Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford and will begin the clinical trial tomorrow. Thank you all for your continued prayers. We wait with anticipation to see what God will do.