A Little Spring Break Setback…But Doing Great
Rucker had been doing GREAT after his lung surgery - he went home from the hospital after only 4 days and you would have never known he had just had major surgery in both lungs. He also went back to school for two weeks and had a blast! He was walking on his own and had become super active, until we had a little hiccup. During Spring Break, Rucker’s right knee became inflamed near his surgery site from his previous femur operation. Apparently all of his new activity and possibly a little growth spurt made his bones shift in his leg and one of the pins that had been placed in his leg actually popped out of his knee! It scared me to death, but Rucker was totally unfazed by it. He just said “oh look Mommy, it looks like someone drilled a hole in my leg” and then went back to playing. We quickly made arrangements with our oncology team and surgeon at MD Anderson and flew to Houston on Wednesday March 27.
Rucker had surgery the next day and his surgeon Dr. Lewis cut back the pins in his right femur, re-cemented them into the bone, and re-sutured his wounds. In addition, our oncologist Dr. Wadhwa and Dr. Lewis went ahead and made the decision to remove the lesion in his left fibula (the small lower leg bone). This was the first lesion that was detected back in March 2018, when we just thought Rucker had a bone cyst. Since his diagnosis in June, that lesion seemed to remain stable and, because it was in Rucker’s “good leg” and he was asymptomatic, we decided to monitor it instead of removing it. The plan was working well until we had scans after the lung surgery and an MRI report indicated that the fibula lesion may have grown slightly. Therefore, we decided the best way to manage it was to have it removed. Dr. Lewis successfully removed the top third of his left fibula and he came back home to Birmingham 3 days after surgery. The fibula is not a weight bearing bone so he is allowed to bear full weight on both legs but he is apprehensive and his muscles are very tight. Right now we are focused on healing his new incisions and physical therapy to get Rucker moving again.
Once his incisions are healed and he is cleared by his doctors, Rucker is going to start a new drug called Pazopanib that has recently been shown in a clinical trial to be effective against soft tissue sarcomas in pediatric patients. This drug acts like more of a cell inhibitor rather than a chemo drug so it should be much easier on his body. We pray for healing, walking, and for this new drug to be effective!
