July 1998

Dear Family & Friends,

I am thrilled to report that as usual, Sebastian has continued to amaze the doctors and us!!

On Wednesday, July 8, he went into surgery at 10:45am. They made a seven inch incision above his right hip and it goes to just past his belly button. Seven hours later, they removed all of the tumor mass and found that the tumor had grown into his liver and into a few lymph nodes around the area where the tumor was (not into the kidney as was previously reported). They removed about three centimeters from his liver and took out the lymph nodes that were involved. The surgeon said that he was able to remove all of the cells that he could see but did feel that there was some microscopic cells left behind. The doctors feel that because the tumor responded so well to chemo, those cells that were left behind will be killed by the chemo and radiation that is coming up.

He was sent to the pediatric intensive care unit at about 5:45pm and they told us that he "sailed right through surgery" and was doing well. We got to see him at 6:30 and he still had tubes in his nose and throat and was hooked up to several other monitors as well. By 8:00pm, he got his tubes removed and was breathing well on his own and even had some gurgles coming from his tummy-something the nurses said was incredible after a seven hour surgery. We popped in Toy Story and Sebastian's first post surgical word was "BUZZ". He had a catheter placed in his lower back for an epidural to numb only the area of his incision and it worked amazingly well as he was able to move all of his extremities without too much difficulty. Daddy and I took turns sitting at his bed side throughout the night while the other one slept for a few hours at a time. He was moved to the inpatient unit at 11:30am the next day-just seventeen hours post surgery. The nurses called him "wonder boy" and we told them that t here were lots and lots of prayers that were holding all of us up through this.

On Thursday night at about 6:00pm, I got him out of bed and he took his first very difficult steps. From that point on, he became more and more mobile. On Friday he consumed clear liquids and took more steps and said more words. On Saturday he got the epidural taken out, was walking short distances on his own, eating solid foods and hitting his baby brother on the head with toys! On Sunday he was released with Tylenol with codeine for pain. God is SO gracious!

We go back to Iowa City for a fifth cycle of chemo on July 20-July 25. As soon as his blood counts recover from that, he will go for radiation on an outpatient basis for five days-probably August 10th-August 14th. Then he goes to transplant-probably about August 24. They will give him about a week of continuous chemo (24 hours a day) which totally wipes out his bone marrow, the lining of his mouth and digestive tract, his hair (he has some peach fuzz right now!) and most importantly, the big bad cancer cells. Then they fly his bone marrow from Los Angeles and put it back in through his central line. Then we wait for his body to start growing blood cells back and making him healthy again. This process takes anywhere from three to six weeks. The largest risk of this procedure is infection. The bacteria found on Sebastian's own body is the biggest culprit of infection.

After all of this, we will be done with treatment!! Except for trips for check ups, life will resume to normal by the fall. When kids relapse, it generally occurs between nine and twenty four months post bone marrow transplant. So we will continue to ask for prayer for Sebastian for a long time!!

Family Plans

We are totally in the dark right now about what we are going to do during his transplant time. It will be back to school time for Steve and Stephanie. Sam goes to preschool three afternoons a week and we are still not sure how often we should have Spencer on the transplant floor. Hopefully Steve Sr. can cut back on his work hours at his part time job, but nothing is clear right now. We definitely need your prayers and guidance to fully rely on God concerning this matter. Sebastian will be two years old on August 31-while he is in the hospital no doubt. Oh well, just think what a wonderful Christmas we will have!!

As always, thank you for your prayers, calls, letters and everything. We will continue to keep you posted!

In God's Love,

The Dockery's