A new development

Remington came home last night!! This little event surprised everyone. The Oncology surgeon walked into the room yesterday afternoon and started talking about sending Remi home. They are very pleased and surprised by Remington's recovery. (They say he makes it look easy.) We are a good solid week ahead of what the doctors were anticipating for Remington's recovery period before coming home.
Remi still has a feeding tube and an oxygen hose connected, everything else has been removed. The doctors will remove his feeding tube as soon as he starts eating regularly and he mainly needs the oxygen at night when he is sleeping. Remi is still pretty sore and is having to use a walker to get around a majority of the time but, he is doing all of this moving by himself. Now his only requirements are to eat, breathe,walk and heal. The doctors will be meeting to determine the next steps in Remington's treatment. He will have 4 to 6 weeks to heal, then he will be completing Chemotherapy (about 4 more rounds we think). After that it is possibly Radiation therapy up at the Huntsman Cancer Center. Dr. Barnette wil be meeting with the Radiologist soon to obtain his opinion. Hopefully it will be very quiet and calm for the next little while around here. We will post any news we get. Thank you everyone. Take care and God bless you all.

Finally out of ICU

Good news! Remington has been moved out of ICU and is back up on the 4th floor. The central line and his IV lines have been removed along with the tube running up his nose and into his stomach. His mood is much improved and he is actually laughing at a funny movie. The doctors want to take another x-ray in the morning but, they are very pleased with Remi's progress today. Remington is adjusting his position in the bed by himself as well as drinking water. the doctors are going to try Remi on a clear liquid diet starting tomorrow. If he can eat and keep it down they will remove the feeding tube from his nose. The next goal will be to get Remington up on his feet and moving around. Thank you for all of your support through this time in Remington's life.

On Our Way to Recovery

Remington 's breathing tube was successfully removed today. He also had the two large chest tubes removed. He has been able to cough and clear his lungs and throat by himself. His chest X ray is showing that his lungs are clear. The doctors are impressed because he made everything look so easy. We suspect he will be moved to the fourth floor by tomorrow. Remington even smiled today. He is truly our hero and has made us very proud. We want to thank everyone for their positive thoughts and prayers.

Still in ICU

Right now Remington is doing very well. Not a lot has changed since our last post. Remi is no longer getting a continuous drip of pain medication. He has to push the button for his PCA pump to get his pain medication. The are trying to keep him as awake as possible so he can trigger the breathing instead of letting the machine do all of the work. It is a real balancing act. Keep the pain under control without putting him so deep that he forgets to breathe. The plan is changing on a daily basis, but right now they are planning on taking the tube out sometime tomorrow. This depends on how well he does this evening and the results of his chest swab. They took a sample of fluid from his lungs to check for infection this morning. Remi is resting as comfortably as he could be all things considered. We will post again when we have more news. Thank you.

The tumor is out

Remington is done with surgery. It took 8 hours , but he is finally done. They took 4 ribs as well as a part of his left lung where the tumor had grown into the lung lining. Remi now has a spot that is 8cm by 12cm that is missing the ribs and muscle. The mass they removed was roughly the size of a deck of cards. Right now he is still sedated and has tubes running out of him all over the place. (He has 2 IV lines, 2 drain tubes running from his chest cavity, 2 drain tubes running from his incision site, a breathing tube, as well as 2 tubes running up his nose and down into his stomach.) He actually looks a little like a Borg from Star Trek.
The doctors are going to keep him asleep tonight and slowly turn down the machine that is breathing for him. That way his body will take over breathing and they can remove the tube tomorrow sometime. He will then spend another day in ICU. After that it is back to the 4th floor as long as there are no complications and Remington cooperates with the therapists. We will post any news in the next day or so. Thank you.

surgery update

The circulating nurse just spoke to us about Remi's status. He has been under for a little over 2 hours now, the surgeons have removed the mass and his 4th rib. Now they will start cleaning up the edges and checking to other suspicious areas from the CT and bone scans. Remi has received 1 unit of blood so far and his vitals are strong. We will update again in a few hours when we hear Remington's status.

Here we go!!

Sorry for the delay in posting any news. We have been going non-stop for the past few weeks. It has been one activity after another, trying to squeeze a summer of activities into 3 weeks. We have been out boating on Pine View, Remington rode in the pace car out at Rocky Mountain Raceway, we have been doing marathon movie nights as well as just getting back from 3 days in Disneyland. Remington and Samara are having a blast.
Now comes the hard part..... We are sitting in the surgery waiting room now. Remington just went back and they have just put him to sleep. It will be at least 6 hours from now before Remi will be coming out. After this surgery the schedule is 4 days in ICU, followed by 14 days up on the ICS floor. The surgeon is planning on removing at least 3 ribs and possibly up to 5 depending on what they find. He will then have a long road of therapy and recovery. Once he has recovered it will be back to 4 more rounds of chemotherapy as well as 2 weeks of radiation therapy. This will be a hard climb, but at least the finish line is finally in sight.
I will post pictures of our adventures later this week after things have calmed down a little bit. Thank you once again for your thoughts and prayers. Please keep them coming. Remington is going to need them.
Elijah