Final Test of the Success of the "Abby Treatment"

[Photo Description: Ollie lies in the CT scanner with his feet going in first and his arms above his head.]

Yesterday we finally got those elusive scans following an extra month of "scanxiety" after we had to delay first for a cold and then we got bumped last week because 4 CHEO MRI technicians were out sick last week with COVID-19. This made for a very tense month around our house as we waited for illness to pass and for scan day to finally come..

It didn't help that Ollie's cold was in his sinus and caused eye pain, eye goop (diagnosed as viral conjunctivitis) and headaches, when in the past symptoms of his relapses were eye pain and headaches. 

[Photo Description: Ollie readies to have an IV inserted in his arm]

As always Ollie was amazing at getting through his scans day. Handling the IV insertion like a total pro, drinking the yucky contrast for 3 hours and waiting patiently for his turn.

While waiting and drinking he had a great session with his original child psychologist who is back from mat leave and couldn't believe how well-adjusted and amazing he's doing after everything he's been through. "The rumours really are true, Ollie. You're amazing!", she teased him.

[Photo Description: Dawn wears a mask and bears her arm to show a bandaid after getting her flu shot at CHEO]

I snuck off during his session for a short while to get a flu shot while there because I am a CHEO volunteer for the Oncology Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) and the Research Institute. I had tried to encourage Ollie to be with me later as I took my turn being poked for once, but he had little interest. 

[Photo Description: Ollie is dressed in a hospital gown and pants and wearing a mask with a masked Dawn seated beside him defile waiting for his MRI at CHEO.]

We had to wait a bit for the MRI, so he was getting tired by the time they took us and had to lie still for 1.5 hours while they did full head and body scans. By the end he was getting wiggly and uncomfortable, but he hung in there. As usual I sat on the very hard plastic chair and prayed a lot. Naturally for my Ollie' s wellness, but also for other CHEO warriors like Griffin who was starting his chemo for his stem cell transplant at Sick Kids Hospital yesterday, too. 

[Photo Description: Dawn poses for a selfie wearing her mask and standing in front of a creepy clown painting in CHEO's MRI waiting area. Clearly Dawn is not generally a fan of clowns, with CHEO's now retired therapeutic clown Molly Penny being the exception.]

Totally worth the discomfort and seemingly never-ending wait as we got great news today - CLEAR SCANS!!! No evidence of disease after stopping the miracle drug Lorlatinib 93 days ago that has been our insurance policy against relapse for two years. So now we know definitively that the transplant with Abby's amazing overachieving half match stem cells was a real success! I've pretty much been in tears all night once again over the gift she's given him, and the gifts that God has given us.

This was a huge milestone to pass! There were minor things seen in the scans, like evidence of the sinusitis that he's had for the past month and inflammation still in his left eye that he had surgery on 4 months ago, but all exactly what we would expect to see and they said it was otherwise unremarkable. Unremarkable is amazing news in the cancer world! 😆

Monday we're back at CHEO for bloodwork and checkup, plus his final 3 doses of his childhood re-vaccinations after transplant. We're also sending his blood to Germany again to participate in an Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (ALCL) study and to do the Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) test that can detect if there is any evidence of cancer cells left in his body. If this test is negative like last time, we rejoice. If positive we have decided with his medical team to put him back on the Lorlatinib as we won't take the chance of relapse again. Wish us luck, but honestly we're feeling pretty positive and hopeful right now.

So thank you all for your positivity and prayers. God and science are so unbelievably great and we are divinely blessed. If you could, please send some prayers for Griffin and his mama Tamy for a successful transplant. He's been battling off and on the past 4 years of his almost 6 years of life and deserves to get to true wellness, too. 

"Hyper"-charged Back to School and Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

[Photo Description: Ollie lies on a hospital gurney hugging CNIB Buddy Dog Hope in CHEO's Medical Day Unit (MDU) during his August bloodwork and checkup.]

It has been a busy 2 months since I last updated the blog in mid-August! I figured I'd better write an update as I am starting to get private messages from followers wondering if we're okay.

I expected to update before now, but a few minor developments (I'll elaborate later in this post) have kept me busier than expected and we had hoped to have had scans by now and be able to confirm if he was still in remission. Unfortunately we all got colds the past couple of weeks (many many COVID tests taken to be certain that is all it was for each of us in our turn) and had to postpone Ollie's original scan date last week until October 19th, so we don't have any news on that front yet and while we are at it will ask you to include Ollie in your prayers for the next week for clear scans again.

[Photo Description: Ollie proudly wears his white Kids Kicking Cancer Canada gi and new yellow orange belt in the living room while standing on an exercise mat with Hope at his feet after his virtual belt grading.]

Backtracking a bit, the end of August was busy with getting ready for back to school. Ollie was proud to get his yellow orange belt through Kids Kicking Cancer Canada! 

[Photo Description: Ollie, students and Senseis do pushups while wearing their gis and masks at an in-person class of Kids Kicking Cancer Canada - Ottawa Chapter, while CNIB Buddy Dog Hope lies beside Ollie's mat wedding her yellow CNIB vest.]

All summer Ollie has been attending Kids Kicking Cancer Canada in person at the Maplesoft Jones Centre/Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation's facility. CNIB Buddy Dog Hope has gone with him and even helped to calm others in the class, so she's invited to all classes that Ollie wants to bring her to now! 

[Photo Description: Ollie sits beside Hope and Child Life Specialist Manon on a gurney in CHEO's Medical Day Unit (MDU) with one arm around Hope, while nurse Kerri gives Ollie the first dose of his last four live childhood re-vaccinations.]

Ollie also got his first dose of the re-vaccinations for the live vaccines (Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Varicella) at the end of August. Only one more set of these on October 31st and he will be fully re-vaccinated! That's 30 doses of childhood vaccines plus 3 COVID vaccines in the past 18 months! He was also told by his team that he could bring his Hope with him for this and any appointment at CHEO where she could be a support to him. As usual Hope was amazingly well-behaved and calmed Ollie like few others can. 

[Photo Description: Abby wears her backpack and stands on the front porch with feet apart and arms crossed on her high school orientation day. The sharing of this photo was authorised by Abby.]

September has been consumed by back to school and starting all of the lessons and activities again! Abby started high school at her special arts school and is settling in nicely. She is becoming more independent and responsible and has an active teenage social life these days, too. We're trying to give her as normal a first high school year as possible given how abnormal the last three years have been for her and all that she's sacrificed to keep her brother well.

[Photo Description: Ollie stands on the front porch smiling and giving two thumbs up, holding his mobility cane with his backpack at his feet on his fussy day of grade 5!]

Ollie started back to school in grade 5! He now wears a size 10.5 men's shoe already and is among the tallest in his grade 5/6 class already. This is evidence that his thyroid growth hormone has been working well (until recently, but we'll get to that a bit later). Kids who have had cancer often either have early onset puberty or do not enter it at all without the help of hormone therapy. His endocrinology team has said that as he's starting to move into puberty, they do not intend to slow it down since the growth is where they want him to be, even if a bit faster than he otherwise would experience it.

[Photo Description: Ollie sits at the dining room table reading his French homework in Braille.]

He's back with his amazing Vision Itinerant teacher Dawne and has a sweet new Educational Assistant (EA), as his awesome EA from last year did an accelerated pilot program this summer to become a teacher this fall. She will be missed, but we are grateful for all that she did for Ollie and know how lucky her new students are to have her. His English and French teachers this year are the incredible teachers that Abby had for grade 6 when Ollie was diagnosed. He also has a couple of subjects with the incredible and kind teachers who were his first visitors in hospital during round one of chemo. His gym teacher was Abby's, too, is his same as last year and was and is so committed to adapting sports for him. He came home telling me about capture the flag and how she had the kids on the other team all wear beeper boxes so that they couldn't sneak up on him and steal his flags because he can't see them. I remain so incredibly thankful for his entire educational support team and all that they do for our boy.

[Photo Description: Ollie stands in the schoolyard  on the first day of grade 5, holding his mobility cane and giving a thumbs up with his vision itinerant teacher, Dawne beside him. Photo shared with permission from Dawne.]

We'll focus a lot on the French Immersion side of the shop this year. Ollie remains behind in this subject area having missed two years of instruction thanks to his treatments and a lack of French instruction in his year in virtual school. Also, apparently blind and low vision kids typically don't do French Immersion (50% of the day in French) - they either do core French (1 period out of 4 in French per day) or are exempted from French altogether in their Independent Education Plan (IEP). 

[Photo Description: Ollie stands outside of the school on Terry Fox Run Day wearing his Fight Like A Kid sweatshirt with the Gold Childhood Cancer Awareness ribbon made by Littlepressco. He holds his mobility cane under his arm and a Terry Fox Run sticker in his hands that reads, "I'm not a quitter. I'm running for...Griffin, Lily and CHEO friends still fighting."]

Ollie was given the option to go down to core French, but was insistent he could do it, so I'm working with his amazing French, Resource and Vision Itinerant teachers to modify the curriculum to set him up for success until he is fully up to grade level in French. It is more challenging for a blind kid to learn French Braille, but he is determined and smart. Last year he fully caught up in two missed years in all other subjects as well as jumped 2 grade levels in Braille, too. All because we accommodated, supported and believed in him. So now we'll do the same in French. And he'll show everyone (as he always does) what resilience and perseverance can do. Ollie inspires me daily to do more than people expect I can.

[Photo Description: Ollie and Dawn pose in front of a Make-A-Wish Eastern Ontario banner at a recent Golf Tournament. Photo courtesy of Sharon Forbes, Make-A-Wish Eastern Ontario.]

That's part of why I do so much advocacy and fundraising for organizations that are important to us. To that end, September was Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and a busy one it was! 

We started out filling in for another oncology family who was supposed to speak at a golf tournament being held for Make-A-Wish Eastern Ontario, but was admitted to hospital unexpectedly days before. Often cancer families are in this situation and we ourselves have experienced this in the past, too. Ollie and I drew the raffle tickets and spoke about Ollie's story and what his wish meant to him. Ollie caused a flurry of sales when he told the attendees that there were 200 tickets to be sold and they'd only bought half of that and another kid like him might not get their wish if they didn't buy more! 😆 He was honestly so charismatic and inspiring that the entire tournament was in love with him. 

[Photo Description:  A masked Ollie holds a CHEO Teddy Bear in the nursery in the CHEO Dream of a Lifetime Home for 2022 during the official media launch.]

The next week we got a last minute call from the CHEO Foundation asking if we'd fill in for the oncology family that was going to help launch the CHEO Dream of a Lifetime Home Lottery for them. Sadly this family had also been unexpectedly admitted to hospital with illness. Mario and Abby had school and work obligations, so Ollie and I represented. You can see the launch and our interview here. He was a bit tired and shy about the official launch part, but did amazing at the one on one interviews. You can read another account of the launch event with Ollie's interview here. Finally, I did an interview with Sam Laprade on her CFRA An Hour to Give session on the CHEO Dream Home. You can listen to my interview starting at the 33:58 mark.

[Photo Description: Ollie sits in the driver's seat of a golf cart decorated with gold balloons with Sensei Lyne sitting beside him and Dawn standing beside her at the 2nd Annual Kids Kicking Cancer Canada Ottawa Golf Tournament. Photo courtesy of Sensei Reesa.]

Finally, we were glad to be asked to be Ambassadors for the 2nd Annual Kids Kicking Cancer Canada's Ottawa Golf Tournament (no filling in for others this time). This time we got to spend the day in the beautiful fall weather, cruising around in a golf cart delivering food to volunteers, talking to golfers in the tournament and later delivered a testimonial as to the difference that the program has made in Ollie's life. 

[Photo Description: Dawn makes her eleventh blood donation wearing a mask at Canadian Blood Services in October 2022. Her milestone 10th was in July 2022.] 

In addition to all of this, I'm working  full-time, am on various committees and councils for pediatric cancer and blindness and continue to work on several cancer-related studies. It's a lot, but I feel so grateful to be well enough myself to do these things and to pay forward the incredible blessings that we've been given. As we move into the winter some of these commitments will be completed, lightening my load somewhat. 

[Photo Description: Ollie and Dawn are masked and sit on the sofa in the living room of the CHEO Dream of a Lifetime Lottery Home.]

One of my biggest mental loads still is, and likely always will be monitoring Ollie's health. To illustrate how important this remains, even though he is more than two years post transplant we had a little medical issue over the past 6 weeks, too. 

[Photo Description: Ollie has blood taken at CHEO for his thyroid tests in September 2022.]

In the first weeks back to school we started to see little changes in Ollie: 

- Being short-tempered; 

- Waking in the night each night (he hasn't done that regularly in about a year);

- Waking up at 5 am daily after waking in the night and not sleeping his usual 10 hours per night (getting about 7-8 hours per night maximum); 

- Falling asleep in French class in the afternoons and it being really hard to wake him;

- Sleeping 2-3 hours at midday on weekends (normally he insists on staying awake even when he's tired);

- Complete lack of appetite and is having to almost force food down his throat;

- He continued to lose significant weight (he'd lost 9 pounds in the month after stopping his miracle cancer inhibitor drug Lorlatinib, which was expected given other people had after stopping) rapidly;

- Unexplained constipation and diarrhea again when we'd finally gotten bowel movements settled over the past 6 months after 18 months of instability after transplant; 

- Nervousness and anxiety (he'd started getting stressed again about scratching, dropping or breaking things and ask us constantly if he had. He used to do this whenever he was really anxious, but we've worked on it with the child psychologist and in August and early September when he'd gone off of the Lorlatinib it had disappeared entirely, then suddenly came back 6 weeks later);

- Heat intolerance when he'd have his plantar warts lasered, even though he'd done the treatments for a year and never complained that it ever hurt; and

- Night sweats.

[Photo Description: A masked Ollie checks his Braille on the Perkins Brailler in the Braille Room at school. A small black lab stuffie wearing a CNIB vest sits beside him on the table. Photo courtesy of Dawne Smith-Appell] 

It was the meltdowns and falling asleep during the day that made little bells go off on my head in the third week of September. This was just after his school team started wondering if he really was unhappy in French Immersion and suggested we might need to take him out. I started thinking about when we'd seen these symptoms before. At first it was scary because many of them are also symptoms of cancer. But I breathed deep and thought harder and remembered that after transplant when we'd gotten home and started seeing outbursts, fatigue and many of the same symptoms, it was his thyroid causing issues. Then I started thinking about what could make his thyroid meds stop working properly and I remembered that when he'd gained a lot of weight on Lorlatinib after transplant, they'd needed to bump his synthetic thyroid hormone med up because they told me it had to be calibrated to his weight. He'd lost 18 pounds in 2 months, so I realized he was likely experiencing hyperthyroidism instead of the hypothyroidism that he started taking the med for. Essentially I was certain he was taking too much thyroid medication because of his weight loss and this hadn't been flagged as a concern by his team at our last checkup at CHEO in August, even though they'd commented on the rapid weight loss. 

I verified in his MyChart online that they hadn't measured his thyroid levels by checking his TSH and T4 levels in his bloodwork since April. So I sent messages to the endocrinology team and his oncology team to explain and request a blood test. When the nurse practitioner in endocrinology called me back, she confirmed that it sounded like his thyroid was now overactive and ordered the blood test. She also said we would check his cortisol levels at the same time to be sure they were okay. Our team in CHEO's Medical Day Unit was kind enough to squeeze us in on the Friday morning for the test to keep things easier for Ollie to have it in an environment he knew well versus going to the lab directly. Monday I got the results in MyChart before I got a call from the Endocrinologist. Cortisol levels were fine.  But he did have high T4, low TSH. Hyperthyroidism. The Endocrinologist called about an hour later to confirm it, to commend me for seeing it and asking for the blood test, and to tell me she'd send a new prescription to the pharmacy for us that he should start the next day. She said that it would take 4-6 weeks for things to level out on the new meds and if we were coming in for routine bloodwork at the end of October anyways, we'd also check his levels again to see if the levels were normal or we needed to adjust the dose again.

[Photo Description: Ollie wears a helmet and is being silly while riding his Berg peddle go kart at the Central Experimental Farm with both hands in the air.]

So I was able to go back to his team at school and confirm that it was his thyroid, not bad behaviour or boredom. And Ollie insisted he was going to continue in French Immersion even if we have to work harder this year to make up for the two missed years when he was sick. He says if he could catch up on everything else last year after two years away, he can catch up on French this year, even with thyroid issues. 

[Photo Description: Ollie and friends from his Beep Kickball with the Miracle League of Ottawa.The kids are outfield in the last game of the season that was kids against blindfolded parents. Of course the kids won!]

Despite these challenges this fall, my boy has also participated in the Terry Fox Run and made the Cross country running team. He didn't go to the meet, though, as it ended up being the same day as a special event day for the Blind Low Vision program and he attended that event instead, where I'm told he was a real leader and helped the little kids a lot! He's also finished his Beep Kickball season and returned to his skateboarding lessons at The Yard with instructor Jordan. He's even inspired another little friend with vision loss to start taking lessons just before him on Tuesdays with Jordan! 

[Photo Description: Ollie porches on the edge and gets ready to drop in on the bowl at skateboarding lessons at the The Yard. Instructor Jordan holds his hands for balance.]

Mario and I both continue to work from home, with him going into the office the odd weekend day to do server work for a few hours as needed. We are grateful for the flexibility that our employers allow us to work around Ollie's school drop off and pick up schedules, as well as his medical appointments. Having to figure out a one-to-one daycare situation for him as well this year would have been a huge challenge. There have already been a number of days where there has been a shortage of Educational Assistants at Ollie's school and two afternoons that I've had to keep him home for lack of support already. These are the same educational workers that the Ford government and the Education Minister Stephen Lecce are refusing to negotiate fairly with. The same ones that my son and special needs kids like him need to get an equitable education. 

So our work flexibility may be even more necessary in the weeks to come if the mediation fails and educational workers strike. We had so hoped that this year could be completely normal, but between educational worker issues, difficulty getting COVID vaccines that should have been available months ago and more COVID spread, and flu season happening earlier than normal, it looks like we're destined to have another year of disruptions. Still grateful to have these problems than those that we've been dealing with the past 3-years, but wouldn't it be nice not to have to keep adapting?!

[Photo Description: Mario describes a small pumpkin to Ollie and holds it so that Ollie can feel it at the pumpkin patch at Miller Farms.]

So as we cruise into this week, which marks our three year anniversary of landing at CHEO in pursuit of diagnosis, and our twice annual MRI and CT scans to see if he's still cancer free, we once again thank you for continuing to follow our little story. Shockingly we are nearing 400,000 views of this blog around the world in the almost 3 years I have been writing it! Once again, I humbly ask for your ongoing positivity and prayers for clear scans this week. We'll share a short blog post as soon as we have results.

In the meantime, be kind to each other and yourselves, and please don't take any of your blessings for granted. See below for Ollie's recent Thankful Friday inspiration in his class from the day they also did the Terry Fox Run at school. Let us all see the world as Ollie does despite all of the suffering he's endured in his young life.

[Photo Description: Ollie's brailled message for Thankful Friday contribution on Terry Fox Run Day. It reads, " I am grateful for life. I am grateful for friends. Everyday, I am grateful for those who survived." Photo courtesy of Leanne Endicott]