Welcome to Nathan's Cancer Journey

This blog is a reposting of Nathan's Caringbridge page which we updated throughout his battle with Neuroblastoma.

Nathan was born on June 16, 2000, diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma on April 1, 2003 and died on July 29, 2007.

I have posted the journal here to make it easier to look up by date and also to be able to easily add pictures to the journal entries.

Some of the pictures go along with the text, but many of the pictures you will see were pictures taken on the same date the journal was added, even if the pictures have nothing to do with the text. In the future I may add additional journal entries to go along with pictures to add more explanation/memories.

I am just getting started posting the years of entries and so this will be incomplete for some time. I hope to eventually also post the guestbook entries by date as a comment on the post.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Thursday, April 22, 2004 2:20 PM CDT

Greetings...

Nathan had a fine visit to the oncologist. He just needed blood counts. He didn't even see a doctor. His blood counts were excellent. His hemoglobin was 11.5 (normal range starts at 12) his white counts were on the low side of normal but just fine and his platelets were 178 which is the very low side of the normal range. This is the first time his platelets have been in the range in a year! He received a medication to boost his hemoglobin but this time they were able to give him one that lasts 2 weeks and so we don't have to go back next week.

The preschool assessment went ok. It was just a pre-evaluation to see if he would receive a full-blown evaluation which they decided he will. He refused to do some of the tasks she wanted him to. I think he was nervous about it. We will have to talk it all up before the formal assessment. All in all his fine motor skills are definately lacking and gross motor skills on the edge. When they assess him they will decide if he qualifies for services from the school district such as physical therapy. If he doesn't he still may be able to go the the preschool through a Colorado program based on need for services which he definately has.

Between yesterday and today I have managed to tackle some of the household projects that have been gnawing at me and I feel so much better having accomplished them. I did pay a price last night. I think my allergies combined with physical and emotional exhaustion got to me and I had a horrid headache and went up to bed after dinner and stayed there. I am feeling much better today.

Tomorrow morning Nathan will go to the ear doctor. I haven't a clue what to expect from the visit but hopefully we will come out of it having had an expert evaluate him and let us know where to go from here - if anywhere.

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