http://maxspartacus.com Love and Support for Max Spartacus Kleckner Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:28:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en As we enter this next phase of  Max’s journey our nights are filled with stress and fear.  I sit and watch Max sleep long into the night, wondering if we are doing the right thing, wondering what the next few years will bring to our little Love.  We have made ... http://maxspartacus.com/?p=434 After 6days in the hospital and all signs pointing to Max’s infection clearing we decided to postpone Max’s next round of chemo for a few days and head home for the weekend.  The infectious disease team determined that the infection was bacillus cereus, a bacteria common in soil.  What is ... http://maxspartacus.com/?p=422 Max reached  his nadir this weekend and what would typically be a minor scrape for a healthy kid has put Max back in the hospital with a serious infection.  Such a bummer to ruin his week at home and ever so scary.  Max  battled a fever for 36hrs and needed ... http://maxspartacus.com/?p=411  The latest MRI shows that Max’s tumor has shrunk, the cancer is responding to the latest chemo regimen.  This encouraging news helps us get through the long and painful days of treatment.  Max had surgery yesterday to insert his port then started his second round of chemo.  He woke up ... http://maxspartacus.com/?p=407 Avatar Max completed his stem cell harvest in 2days, 6.4million cells.  We get to go home for two days and Max feels great which makes our whole world a happy place.  Next up is surgery in 2 days to remove the dreaded aphaeresis catheter, good riddance tubes, hello swimming, hello ... http://maxspartacus.com/?p=403 Max harvested 3.5million stem cells yesterdy and has another 1.5mil to go.   The stem cell harvest is done the same way the t-cells were harvested at the national cancer institute; an aphaeresis machine sucks all his blood thru a centrifuge.  We are banking the stem cells now while he is ... http://maxspartacus.com/?p=398 Although the surgeons were successful on their part of the tumor resection, Max’s oncologist was left to deliver the bad news that cancer tissue remained in an inoperable area of his head.  The post op MRI shows that the cancer has invaded Max’s cavernous sinus, this is a tunnel into his ... http://maxspartacus.com/?p=389 Max was biten by a vampire yesterday, at least that’s his story.  He was punctured in his jugular and all his blood was sucked out.  We are in Maryland this week to enter Max into a clinical trial at the National Cancer Institute.  The trial doesn’t actually start until Max ... http://maxspartacus.com/?p=385 Home sweet home.   Its hard to believe the extremes and the torture that Max has been through, harder to believe how resilient he is.  Home just 3days after neuro and head surgery, amazing.  When he first woke only an hour after surgery and wanted that tube out and fought hard ... http://maxspartacus.com/?p=376 The surgery took 8 hours and went well.  The neurosurgeon was able to make a clean resection and the tumor had not entered into his brain dura, this is great news.   The head and neck surgeon removed the bulk of the tumor cleanly, it was a little fuzzy where it ... http://maxspartacus.com/?p=372