Limps+Gimps+Scans+Plans

Our week got off to a good start. Jo Ann woke up at 6 a.m. to attach Pablo's ball of antibiotics to his port. A little while later, I woke up screaming in pain. Turns out the meds I'm on wear off in the night, leaving my nerves ready, willing and able to hurt my feelings the moment I wake. And, boy did I have hurt feelings this morning! No matter which way I shifted my body, I was in the worst pain I've ever, ever felt. Guess that's what happens when you fly through the air at 30 m.p.h. and land on this:

Tuesday morning, Adam will pick me up at 8 a.m. and we'll make our way to Bev Hillz to see the orthopedic doc. I'll bring the disc that contains my CT scan from Palm Springs. At that same time Pablo and Jo Ann will head to CHLA for Pablo's CT scan (chest) and MRI (abdomen and pelvis). These will be his first post-treatment scans. He'll get scanned every 90 days from here out for (we think) the next two years. Then it will go to every six months. Tomorrow afternoon, we have a state of the Pablo union meeting with Dr Mascarenhas. He'll tell us the result of the scans as well as the GFR (nuclear kidney function test) that we got this morning.

We're requesting your most loving and positive energy, light, prayers, intentions—whatever you you do to connect with others, we're asking that you do it tomorrow around 9 a.m. PDT.

Saturday, Pablo started walking with a limp. His right foot is hurting, and he's favoring it to such a degree that he actually prefers to hop or sort of skip around. When I first saw these moves, I thought he was just having a good time kickin' it around the house in Palm Springs. The place is pretty big, and a kid can really get moving running from one end of the house to the other. At some point Jo Ann asked Pablo about this move, and he identified the pain. We're going to ask Dr M about it tomorrow. We are hoping that this pain, like so many other strange little blips of pain over the past year, is a fleeting thing.

As we walked into Malo this evening for Dollar taco night, Jo Ann took a look at hobblin' Pablo and his hobblin' Papa and cracked up. 'Gimp one and gimp two,' she joked as we ascended the stairs to the dining room. I was in too much pain to laugh—or to crack back at her. But it was pretty damn funny. Made us sound like a coupla characters from a Dr Seuss book. If we were, we'd probably be our faves—Star Belly Sneeches.

Tune in tomrorow for another episode from Medi-Land....