It's 2:15 pm on Monday 24th of January and my son is in surgery to have his biopsies done. Jonathan went in at 1:30 pm and they estimate that it will take about two hours to complete. For Jonathan they will be taking two biopsies, one of the tumor and the other of his bone and bone marrow on both sides of his hips. Although this should be a routine surgical procedure - I'm a little worried because my son has never had surgery nor have I ... I know that nothing is guaranteed ... but I do believe that everything will turn out all right.
Here are the events from yesterday:
Jonathan woke up with a fever on Sunday morning. We didn't have a thermometer but we knew that he was feeling warmer than a low grade fever. Unfortunately Jonathan did not want to take his prescription medicine so we had to end up forcing him to drink it. This prescription medicine was to help him with the pain and would also help with the fever. This medicine was also 'safe' such that he would still be able to have his surgery. For example, if he was taking Motrin - then we may not have been able to have his surgery because Motrin affects how the clotting / bleeding process works (medical professions ... please excuse my mucking this up).
The original intention on Sunday was to take Jonathan to the San Francisco Zoo - but with his fever and pains increasing - it didn't make any sense to try and go out. Our main concern was to get home as quickly as possible so that we would be nearer to Stanford in case any emergencies arises. By 10 am his fever and pains were reduced although he was very lethargic and non-responsive.
At 4 pm - after I returned home from doing some chores - going to Longs Drugs, Safeway, etc..., I arrived to see Jonathan drinking some juice - only to see him throw it up. I started to get concern because some of the things they always ask us when we go to a doctor's visit are, "Does Jonathan have a fever?", "Has he vomited?", "Does he have a cough?". At this stage he had done two things that raised my 'panic' level and when he started to shiver / tremble we decided to call the on-call Pediatric Oncologist.
By 6 pm Gabby had left with Jonathan to go to Stanford ER - because the on-call Oncologist wanted us to make sure that Jonathan didn't have a bacterial infection. He wanted Jonathan to see a doctor and for some blood to be drawn so that they could test it. Gabby and I had decided that we didn't all have to make the trip - especially since I was feeling physically (and probably mentally) drain she would go with Jonathan. The end result was that Gabby and Jonathan didn't reach home until 3 am with the conclusion that Jonathan was fighting a virus and probably didn't have a bacterial infection.
With his symptoms getting worse we were wondering if they would still have the surgery. The good thing about Stanford is that they are always calling to follow-up on things. So on Monday morning we got two calls - one from pre-op and another from nuclear medicine (to verify that there were no aftereffects from the bone scan). The end result was that his audiogram was postpone to another date (to be determined) and his surgery was still on - but moved to 12:30 pm.
Jonathan didn't go into surgery until 1:30 pm but during that time he watch two movies - Chicken Run and the Vegetales Movies. His stomach was hurting for most of the time and he still had a slight fever. The only consoling factor was that he was on drips so at least he was getting hydrated ... but I wish he wasn't in so much pain.
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