Day 3

Thursday. This was the kid's last day of school before Christmas break. Vince got them off and then came to the hospital. The three of us hung out and talked and enjoyed our time together. Then the doctors came in and delivered news we were not expecting. Riley had AML. Acute Myeloid Leukemia. We were expecting the more common, ALL. ALL would have meant a few days of chemo, a week in the hospital total. Then of course coming back for treatments pretty consistently. But he would have been able to go home. AML is a more aggressive cancer. It is therefore treated very aggressively. Riley would be in the hospital for the long haul of treatment. 5 months. We had been studying up on leukemia and knew that we did not want AML. When the doctor informed us that is what he had, I felt weak in my knees. I felt as though the rug had just been pulled out from under me. I look over at Vince and Riley and I could feel the weight of this on all of us. Riley started to ask questions of the doctor. I was still in shock about the whole thing and Riley is asking smart questions. He is amazing! So the next step is to find out the cellular make up. Which chromosomes make up the cell. There are 3 categories. Good, meaning that the chemo has been found to work on these cells and all is well. Intermediate, meaning sometimes the chemo works and sometimes it doesn't. And Poor, meaning they have not found the chemo to work. They would now need to send his labs off to determines the chromosome make up. Another waiting game.
This was a very hard day. The reality of it all was hitting us... hard.