Tanner then, now

330 May 22, 2008 at 09:02 PM MDT

It's been a while, huh? Sometimes I'm reminded how small the world really is. (Other times it seems bigger than ever!)

Today, Tanner had a visit with his Oncology docs. The whole way there he was talking about "his hospital, his doctors, and his nurses." He told me that no girls are allowed at his hospital, only boys! I told him that girls get sick too and need the doctors to help them. He thought for a couple seconds and said "Oh yeah, your right, girls and boys can be at my hospital." Gosh, I love that boy!

We hadn't been to see Oncology in a year or so! We've been seeing Tanner's liver doc, Dr. Book, every couple months, so I figured she had things under control. But, since I'm sure oncology was desperately missing us, hehe, we went in. They stated the obvious, that Tanner looks great. He really does. He weighs almost double what he did when he was first diagnosed. Isn't that amazing? He has come so far. The plan for oncology is to get scans and a heart echo in 6 months. Then again at the five year mark! After the visit in six months, he'll go see them once a year.

One of Tanner's original doctors, Dr. Meeker, saw his name down for today and came in to say hi. Can I just say how much we adore him? We adore him! (This is the part that made me think how small the world is) I was telling him about the Hepatoblastoma Foundation that we(a bunch of hepatoblastoma parents)are working to set up. (I don't think I've mentioned it! I will in a future update... www.hepatoblastomafoundation.org ) He was saying how when he was back East doing his residency he had a patient named Alex who opened a lemonade stand. I kind of exclaimed "Alex Scott?!" I told him about our friends in Tennessee and their amazing daughter who has been raising money through Alex's lemonade stand and received an award for her efforts. Small world! Although, not small enough that I've actually been able to meet the friends I talk of. One day maybe....

Dr. Meeker is joining the Bone Marrow Transplant Team at PCMC in July as an Attending, and recently found out that his application for a research grant from Alex Scott's foundation was approved. Small Small world!

Anyway...Tanner's doing well, and we're all doing our best to hang in there...

Love and hugs, Megan