Things have been going somewhat smoothly lately for Tristan. As smooth as they can be, I suppose. He has been receiving chemo through his spinal fluid on a weekly basis, since January 4th. He seems to be weathering this chemo okay. He had chemo on Friday and I saw him yesterday. His friend Pat and he were playing video games. He was feeling good even though he had just had chemo the day before.

They found a cord match of stem cells for him, except that in a cord match they want 6 out of 6 markers to be in place. This match is 5 out of 6, but they can still use it. The Doctor put it on hold for him until they are through with some of the other treatments they want to try.

The Doctor believes that there is a rogue(mother) cancer cell somewhere in his body swimming around and has now become immune to the chemo they are using. If they stop the chemo treatments, the cancer will continue to grow at a more rapid speed and this way they can continue to control it, somewhat. The plan is to give him chemo right in his head, Dr. Wong seems to think that if they give it to him there it may get to the rogue cancer cell(mother) and kill it. This has only been done once and that person survived as far as we know. The doctor has been doing a lot of research and as Tracey says they only publish the success stories in the medical journals and this person was in that.
At first Tristan was resistant to having a hole in his head, but his Mom has convinced him that we need to try everything and stay very very hopeful. He is a "miracle boy" and he will continue to be a "miracle boy" after all of this treatment. He may be very sick once they start this other chemo procedure and he will be in the hospital for a while, please send him cards or emails, he now has a laptop computer compliments of the Walled Lake Schools. But the real thanks goes to two educators at his elementary school. Thank you Patty Wilson and Linda Day for your help in getting him this means of communication, that he is using every day. His family and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

For those of you, that would like to send him an email, even if it is just to say "hi", his address is: nba2k8360@yahoo.com. He will respond to your email, it may take him a few days, so be patient.

That's the update right now, I will keep everyone informed as this progresses.

Charlotte
Tristan's grandmother