Alrighty, here is what is has been going on the past couple of days. Skyler was scheduled for an EEG and MRI yesterday. They did the EEG and then took him down for the MRI. The plan was to do a conscious sedation where they give him Versed and Ketamine to relax and put him in lala land so he would be out of it and not move for the scan. Plus that room is super scary, no child should have to be awake for that. Anyway so I guess my son has built up a huge tolerance to these meds (I wonder why)  because they had to give him three doses of the Ketamine and that still didn’t sedate him. He woke up a couple minutes later in the scanner screaming for mommy and trying to pry the thing away from his face. I was in the control room watching him on a little camera and basically screamed for them to take him out.(yup they will never let me watch again Im sure) So basically this attempt at the MRI failed. Plan B was to schedule him today for another MRI but with general anesthesia. So today we went down for that and found out that they had to intubate him for it so they could protect his airway while he was in the scanner because the anesthesiologist couldn’t be in the room with him. Needless to say I was not fond of the idea and had a break down in the hall. After 7 weeks of being intubated, the last thing I want was for them to jab another tube down his throat. Everything went really well though and they had him extubated before I got back there to see him.
The results of the MRI showed that he has some abnormalities of the white matter on his brain. Most likely from the Methotrexate (chemo) they have to give him in his spine. Its now scar tissue that will always be there. They say that they have seen this before with this type of chemo. Some kids have permanent brain damage from it and others recover when their bodies recover. We just wont know for sure how this will effect Skyler until if becomes an issue. The next step is to talk to our Oncologist about whether to continue with this type of chemo or not. Im pretty sure that we will continue with it though because the most important thing right now is to treat his cancer right so it doesn’t come back. We can live with a little brain damage, but having the cancer come back can kill him so its kind of a no brainer to me. Good news though is that they didn’t see any clots or anything bad that would cause seizures. Thank goodness!! Im so glad we don’t have to do a surgery to place a shunt or anything like that.
The results of the EEG showed no seizure activity either but it showed that his brain is a lot slower now. He has been so sick for so long that it doesn’t surprise them that his brain is slower now. Just like with the other test he may be able to recover completely from this but he also may never recover, only time will tell at this point. Like they told me before, Im going to shove this to the back of my mind and focus on the good that came out of this. He is awake. He is talking. He is moving again and making us laugh. I know things could have been a lot worse so I am so grateful for where we are at now.

The highlight of my day today was getting a visit from another little cancer buddie also named Skyler and his mom.  He also had a rough go of it, but is doing great now.  It was amazing to see that!  Thank you for coming to see us, it ment a lot to me.

This is the teddy bear that Skyler and his mom gave to Sky.  He loved it and fell asleep with it...super cute!

This is when we were about to transport him down for the MRI.  He had to take his balloon with him that his friend Cami gave him.  We wouldnt let go of it.  Here he is in the halls, balloon and all.