Friday, January 22, 2010 11:15am

Hello friends,

I first want to thank you for all of your cards, e-mails and well wishes.
Aidan remains in the icu...
We have been battling high fevers and some infections due to his immune suppression from the chemo. We expect to see some rebounding of his white cells throughout this next week.

Some very positive things have happened over the past 10 days.
Aidan was able to come off of the ventilator 2 days ago without incident. He has been weaned off of his sedation, steroids, and high dose sodium/mannitol IVs for the brain swelling. His neurosurgeon has removed 2 of the 3 drains in his head. They were able to remove his arterial line and his catheter. Our little man is being, what we call, "de-tubed" left and right...it's very exciting (clearly, we have been here too long).
Aidan is tolerating his increasing NG tube feedings well. However, he continues to be on IV support so that his nutritional needs are met.
We have spoke to his neuro-oncologist regarding his next round of chemo. Aidan will have another MRI prior to see disease status. As I have already shared with you, Aidan has the most aggressive subtype of medulloblastoma. If the tumor spread remains relatively unchanged (or better yet, shows tumor regression), he will begin his next round within the next couple of weeks. If, however, we see a significant increase in tumor spread, it is unlikely that we will move forward with further treatment. We are hopeful that the scan is reflective of the positive response we saw immediately after his first round of chemo.
We ask for your continued prayers to restore Aidan to good health.

Hopefully, the next time I update, we will be back to the neuro/oncology floor as now there is little reason to keep him in ICU.

Again, thank you for all of your kindnesses and I will update soon.