We received some great news today!  The pathology report came back from JT's leg tumor,  the five inch margins were clean.  Which means they amputated far enough up into healthy tissue.  If they had found bad cells JT would have needed another leg surgery.  Thank the lord that came out good!  All this waiting about killed me.  The BEST news ever is the kill percentages of the tumor from the chemo, they hope for at least 90% kill we had almost 100% kill of tumor!!!  The higher percentage of killed tumor means a less chance this tumor will come back.  I know your thinking well it can't come back if the leg is gone...your right but if the chemo worked that well on the leg tumor it means it's working just as hard on the tumors we have left!  So anyway this was a HUGE deal today and I just wanted to share it.  Thanks again for all the prayers we couldn't have gotten this far without them.  

Thank you from the bottom of my heart,   Shauna

Well the day finally came and what a trooper my son was!  JT was due to go into surgery at 1:30 this yesterday afternoon. However that time was pushed back due to a problem because the orthopedic surgeon didn't know that a new central line was needed to be put in since the current one kept getting clogged. We had to wait for that doctor to arrive to do that procedure before the actual surgery could begin. Needless to say, they did not take him into surgery until 4:00 PM!    At about 7:30 PM we finally got word that JT had just been brought into recovery. They had to wait until they got him situated before we could see him, but we were told it went well.  He will have the epidural for a few days to allow his body to relax more so the other pain medication can work and it's supposed to help reduce phantom pain.   The surgeon was able to tell us that the first look at the tissue looked clean (good cells) but we have to wait for the full pathology report to make sure (about two weeks). He said everything went really well; we just need to wait on how well his body adjust to the healing.  They have planned on rest for the weekend and on Monday the work beings with PT and starting to move.  I was a bit concerned with the amount of pain he was having, but they sent the pain management team up to do some tweaking and he seems more comfortable now.   As of now, he will be in the hospital for at least 2 1/2 to 3 weeks. He needs to show a good amount of healing before they can continue the chemo. Since he already has a weekend immune system it will take longer for the healing process. 

 I want to thank all of you who spoke openly about your stories and helped my son and myself get through this.  We have a lot of work to do but I feel a big part is out of the way and time to climb that mountain!

Thanks again,

Shauna