Bone Marrow Transplant

I don't really know enough about T's marrow transplant to give you good information, so I had my mom type up what she has learned in her meetings with the doctors.

"We met with a bone marrow transplant Dr. on Wednesday January 23rd at the clinic at Phoenix Children's Hospital in Phoenix.  They filled us in on what was going to take place with Matthew in the coming months.  Matthew's Dr. wants him to have about 3 more chemo sessions at the clinic in Mesa and then he will go in for an outpatient surgery to have his port realigned and a broviac tube put into his chest by his port.  This will make it much easier for them to give him his chemo and meds and a nutrition line because he always loses so much weight while he is in the hospital.  He is now receiving a neupogen shot everyday for the next 10 days and that started on Sat. the 26th. (he is not happy about this).  This is to bring back his white blood cell counts and double them so that they can go and take some stem cells for the transplant.  The transplant that Matthew is going to be getting is called an Autologous Stem Cell Transplant.  This is where they take his own stem cells and then freeze them and then give him enough chemo in the hospital to kill everything.  Good and Bad.  Then he will get his transplant and then it's a waiting game for his counts to all come back up.  He will spend about 4 weeks in the hospital and won't be able to leave his room the whole time.  (He is dreading this because everyone knows how much he hates the hospital).  When his counts come back they will let him go home and then hopefully he will be healthy and ready to live the rest of his life.  

Please continue to pray and fast for him because this will make him sick and we need everyone's continued faith throughout all of this.  He will also need his friends to continue to come and see him at the hospital because his friends make a huge difference in his mood and healing.  We are looking for fun things for Matthew to do in the hospital so if anyone has a fun puzzle or Lego models for big kids just laying around that will help pass the time, would be great for him.  We will take any ideas that anyone might have."

What's Up?

Matthew finished another round of chemo therapy on Friday. This last round was really hard on him. He was really tired and weak, didn't really have an apetite, and lost almost all of his hair last week. I think he still has some patches of hair on his head, but he's losing his arm and leg hair really fast. His platelets are extremely low, which causes him to get a lot of nose bleeds. He has this clamp that he has to put on the bridge of his nose when it starts bleeding really bad. He has to lay back and leave it on for hours. He doesn't blow his nose anymore because he doesn't want it to start bleeding.
I'll have more updates and details on him sometime this week. I apologize for not being as vigilant, but it's very hard to keep the blog updated so well on top of school.

Hey Cancer, Are You Ready for This?

When Matthew was really suffering during his most recent hospital stay, my mom wrote President Monson a letter telling him of everything Matthew is going through. She asked if he might write Matthew a letter of encouragement because his fight is really hard and his spirits need to be lifted. We weren't sure if he would respond or not, so she didn't tell Matthew about her letter. Well...when we picked up our mail on Sunday afternoon (we forgot to get it on Saturday) there was a letter addressed to Matthew from the church. He opened it and it was signed by the prophet! President Monson had read and responded to my mom's letter in less than two weeks! That says a lot about him. He is probably one of the busiest men on the planet running around teaching the Gospel and running the church, and he took time out of his crazy schedule to help lift one of God's children. 

I don't think Matthew even realizes how much power is being focused on him. He has several missions, stakes, friends, family, President Monson and his first presidency praying for him. People all over the world have him in their thoughts and prayers. It's a really emotional thing for me to think about that, and it gives me great comfort because I know there is no way he can lose this fight with cancer when everyone is standing behind him. I would have never dreamed that my family would have to go through a trial like this. Minor sicknesses, broken bones, financial lows, car accidents..sure. But not cancer for a younger sibling in their childhood. This whole experience is awful, but I know I am a part of the right community to cope with it.

The letter:

Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig

HE'S HOME!!! My family is home together again! It is so nice. There is such a difference in our home now that there are actually people inside of it. T has been fever free all day and his counts are climbing, and he is so happy to be back. I would sit and blog to you all more about menial things that happened with him today, but it's family time. Just know that right now life is great and we love everyone who has been thinking about and praying for us. We can feel the love!

Guess who got groomed for her boy again?

All of the dogs are happy to see him again. They freaked out when he came in the door. Sophie, his dog, was making all of these weird whiney noises to get his attention.

Just a quick flashback to yesterday:

Beckie Taylor made Matthew a Taylor Swift throw pillow and sent it with her son, Mckay, to the hospital. Of course he loves it, and it will make a great addition to his bed. Also, Matthew didn't have the surgery to move his port line because my parents told the doctors not to. Having another surgery would have doomed him to another couple of weeks in the hospital because his counts would surely go back down and he'd be stuck in his bed again every day. When he's at home he's not going to be jumping around or doing anything that would bother the port line, so we're leaving there it until after his next round of chemo so his hospital stay won't be so long.

Cell Counts and Riddles

On Mondays and Wednesdays I don't have school until 1:30, so today I spent my morning at the hospital. Our goal for Matthew is to keep him up and moving so fluid will stay out of his lungs and for his body to heal faster, so last night I made a scavenger hunt to get him walking with a purpose. My clues were spread out around the whole seventh floor, and they were spread out far from one another so he would have to walk more. He had 11 clues to find, and those came with a piece of a puzzle. Here are my clues (if you've been to the hospital frequently and are confident with the layout, see if you can solve the riddles. I'll put the answers at the bottom of this post. Just keep in mind I typed these up in like 30 minutes last night, so they're not incredible.):

1. I blow out the bad and keep in the good,

But hopefully I will not be your prolonged “hood”

2. We take from the healthy to give to the sick,

And even though we mean well, we give you too many pricks.

3. Mother is crafty, Mother is kind,

Mother made these with others in mind.

4. We shouldn’t drink this because the prophet says no,

But I make it anyways for others who don’t know.

5. I will make your hospital nights a prettier stay,

But they forgot to give me batteries to light up the milky way.

6. Although you have one in your room,

I service staff that have bladders full like balloons.

7. Without these women you will be

Like Aladdin without “open sesame.”

8. Although I cannot move but two directions,

Willy Wonka might excuse my imperfections.

9. Bambi and Tom (not Jerry) sitting in a tree,

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

10. Yours is black, Sakeri’s is too,

But to the color white, the hospital stays true.

(This one is kind of far fetched)

11. Families come and families go,

But I stay here to keep their food cold as snow.

When he found all of the riddles and collected all of his puzzle pieces, we went back to his room so he could put it together. The completed puzzle was a picture of a key on one side, and another riddle on the other. The riddle goes:

You think you’re clever because you can find
A key with riddles that came from my mind.
But just you wait my friend and see
Just how tricky I can be.
Yes, the hunt is over now, you’re almost absolved.
But there is one more riddle to be solved.
Like a key this riddle unlocks
The game we’ll play next that will blow off your socks.
Your mom and I will surely beat you,
But don’t get discouraged or else we’ll eat you.
This game is white and square like teeth,
With numbers rotting them underneath.
You need thirty points to first go down,
And then with sets and runs you may go to town.
Yes you probably know the game to find,
So good luck, lets play and see who’s the winning kind.

The answer to this riddle is Rummikub, and when he figured that out he got the game and a pack of Reeses and the three of us played. Mom won, in case you're wondering. It turned out to be a really fun activity though and made two hours fly by.

Clues are green, puzzle is orange.

As you can see though, Matthew is feeling great and is moving a lot. He is fever-free and his counts are high, but we just found out today that he does need to have that procedure that will move his port line away from his heart. I don't think it's problematic, they just want it to be where it's supposed to be. If everything goes well tomorrow he may be able to come home after the surgery because it is an out patient surgery, but we'll see. I like to think positively that he will be able to come after the procedure, but they just keep finding reasons to keep him. So hopefully he'll be home tomorrow, but if not I'm thinking he will be definitely on Tuesday.

Answers to my "riddles"
1. Farthest wing of the seventh floor
2. Nurses station
3. Table where the beanies are kept
4. Coffee maker
5. The nurses gave him a plush turtle whose shell projects stars on the ceiling when you turn him on
6. Staff restroom
7. The front desk where the women who buzz you in to the halls of the seventh floor sit
8. Elevator
9. Sculpture of a deer kissing a cat as you get off of the elevators
10. 7th floor xbox
11. Freezer in the family room

One Week Wrap Up

Monday: 

Matthew was moved from the ICU to the Oncology floor finally. It took a lot of arguing between my mom and the ICU doctors though because they wanted him to stay in the bed until Thursday. They had him in a bed with a mattress full of air that rotated him so he wouldn't get bed sores, and they wanted to put him in like a diaper so he wouldn't get out of bed at all. They didn't even want him to get out and sit in a chair. My parents wouldn't let that happen though. They made the nurses let the poor kid get out and use the bathroom like a normal person, and after a lot of back and forth with the doctors he was able to get back up to the Oncology floor with doctors that understand his needs and what he is capable of. 

Tuesday:

Fevers, vomiting, pain, still not eating.

Wednesday:

Hannah ditched school to hang out at the hospital, Matthew came off of his Morphine pump, still not eating.

Thursday: 

This is the day we got the results back from his marrow sample. Here is a note from my dad summarizing what we learned:

"In speaking with Dr.Williams on the Bone Marrow Report, we learned the following:

The secondary Sarcoma cancer that was found in the first report is basically a mute point to talk about and not a real risk to Matthew at this time.

The Germ Cell cancer, however, has spread and is now in his bones, which is what caused us to bring him to PCH on January 1st.  The treatment that Dr.Williams wants to go with is 1 to 2 cycles of Andramycin/Ifosmide chemotherapy with bone marrow samples between cycles.  If not responding well they will change to another chemotherapy and plan for a bone marrow transplant.

With the transplant they will take some good bone marrow from him and freeze it.  My understanding is that another chemotherapy treatment will kill all the marrow in his bones, including what is left of the Germ Cell Cancer.  The good marrow will then be replaced and allowed to grow back.  This process can take up to eight weeks.  During this bone marrow transplant he will be isolated in a room and all visitors and staff will be requited to wear masks, and I think Dr. Williams said that he would have a sanitary tent around his bed at all times.  The projected time frame on the transplant will be 4-5 months out.  If the next few cycles of treatment have the effect we hope for, hopefully the bone marrow transplant can be avoided. If not, I fear that what Matthew has already gone through might just be the easy part."

Friday:

I spent the day at the hospital with T watching movies, youtube, and playing games. A magician named Jason Flores came and performed for us for like 20 minutes. He was legit. His tricks were crazy and impressive and made me mad because I just wanted to know how he did them. One of these days I'm going to search for an explanation of his tricks on Google. You can find him on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/jasnflores/videos

Pictures I found on his Facebook:

I knew it.

Saturday:

T had no fevers and he is looking really good! Color is coming back to his face and he is more vibrant. He's joking a lot more and pretty much back to normal...except for his appetite. He's still eating like a bird. His stomach has shrunk so much, and he has to take medicine through his IV because occasionally eating makes him nauseous and sometimes he'll throw up his meals.

After I graduated high school I went to Spain and Italy with the foreign language department. While in Spain I had a dish called churros con chocolate, which is pretty self explanatory, but the chocolate they dip the churros in was like a really thick version of hot chocolate. Ever since Matthew learned about that dessert he has craved it. Over the years he has brought up the fact that he wants churros con chocolate quite frequently, so I decided that I would make him some and take it to the hospital as a surprise. I found a few different websites with recipes before I decided on what seemed like the best one. The recipe was actually pretty simple...the hardest part was tracking down the right chocolate and perfecting the churro frying technique. Sakeri and I worked on the dessert for just over an hour before it was delicious enough to take, but it actually turned out really good and tasted pretty close to how I remember it tasting in Spain. When I brought it into T's room and explained to him what I did his whole face lit up. I could tell that it made him really happy, and that was totally worth it. I'm also glad I was able to make it for him because his punk brother who is serving his mission in Spain ate churros con chocolate and wrote Matthew a letter rubbing it in to him. So Chad, now Matthew has had it too.

His friends are weird and cool, and Matthew's stay at the hospital would be unbearable without their visits.

Sunday (Today):

Matthew is still doing good, but we fear he might spike another fever tonight which will push back the date he can come home. He had a bunch of friends visit him tonight, and then after they left my parents and I just hung out with T. The family time was nice. It's something we don't get a lot of these days.

Mom and Hannah made beanies with cute flower buttons and donated them to the cancer floor. They're sitting on a table in a little lobby area before you enter the halls of the oncology floor with other beanies people have donated. Mom put 12 of them out last night, and today there were only 3 left. It was really cool because early this evening I was sitting out in the lobby with mom, and a woman walked by pushing her young daughter in a wheelchair. The mom stopped, grabbed one of the beanies and put it on the little girl's head. The girl was so cute and got really excited to put something warm and pretty on her balding head. It's cool to see that they are being used and appreciated. 

Chad is a Nazi!

Matthew looks and sounds a lot better than he did yesterday. He's still in pretty bad shape, but he's more awake and responsive today. He's talking more and asking for things, which is good. Even though his throat is still kind of sore, he manages to throw out jokes and funny words. He still doesn't complain about his pain, but as soon as we try to get him to drink medicine or something that tastes bad, he complains. He's so backwards.

T is under a lot of Morphine for the pain, so he's becoming a little delirious again. Not nearly as bad as last time, but today he thinks he's in Utah and that everyone that comes to see him flew here. He has also thought that he was on a boat, and that his brother is in Germany. I think he was joking about Chad being in Germany though, because when we asked him about it he said, "Chad is a Nazi so he is in Germany." When mom told Matthew that Chad is in Spain, he said, "Germans don't live in Spain." haha In pain and miserable, but still a jokester.

Matthew had over 1,000 people fasting and praying for him today. Missionaries from Chad's mission and JD Layton's mission, families on the mission mom site, friends and family everywhere, my whole stake, my fiance and his family, and others participated. I know this fast will do wonders for Matthew. If you follow this link (http://thespainmalagamission.blogspot.com.es/) you can see the post on Chad's mission's blogspot that says:

Fasting for Matthew Peters

Saturday, 5 January 2013

Friends and Family of the Spain Malaga Mission:

Today and tomorrow we are fasting and praying for Matthew Peters, the little brother of our own Elder Chad Peters.  He was diagnosed with cancer in September, and as of a few days ago is back in the hospital with severe pain.  He is 16 years old.   Below is a sweet picture from the blog his sister is writing about his difficult journey.  It's Matthew, or "T" as they call him, holding onto Elder Peter's nametag with a note on the back.

It says this, in part:

APRIL 2014  I love you...

...hold onto me tight :)

 Please join us in praying for Matthew and his family.

So cool. Thank you so much to everyone who is fasting and praying for Matthew.

Bailey, Heather, Spencer and Seth came up to visit Matthew tonight. He loves having visitors.

How Lovely Are Your Branches?

At The Phoenix Children's Hospital, there are a ton of Christmas trees decorated on the main floor. They are awesome. I took pictures of my favorites, and this post is pretty much dedicated to them. They are decorated by volunteers, and they definitely make a hospital stay more cheerful and tolerable. Gilbert High students, there is a tiger tree! I bet they put that one up because Matthew is staying in this hospital...And the cow's sign says, "Have a 'Dairy' Merry Christmas!"

                
   
       

Who shoved the Grinch in the tree??

I did.

The Monster

These are the results from the biopsy of his tumor after they removed it. If you read the report, it says that they found retina, bone, cartilage, epithelial cells, etc.  His tumor is a Teratoma Tumor. I did some Googling, and I found an article on pathologystudent.com. I copied the article for you all under his results. 

Result Sheets:

 

The monster tumor

on APRIL 21, 2011

Teratomas can occur in either men or women, but they are much more common in women during the reproductive years.

Teratomas in general are a special type of germ cell tumor in which you see actual tissue development (not just the germ cells themselves). In most teratomas, you see mature tissues – like hair, sebaceous glands, skin, and teeth. Usually there are multiple different tissues from different germ cell layers (so you can see bone, cartilage, thyroid tissue, neural tissue – anything, really).

Some teratomas are composed of immature tissues (which often have a malignant component); still others are highly specialized, consisting entirely of one tissue, like thyroid tissue (this is called “struma ovarii”). But much more common is the benign, multiple-mature-tissue type of teratoma.

Now as to the name…it’s easy to see from the above photo of a teratoma why the term monster might be applied to such a tumor. Certainly, some teratomas look like little monsters, complete with hair, skin and teeth. However, the term also hints at some sinister misconceptions as to the etiology of this tumor. Many years ago, these tumors were thought to arise from all sorts of monstrous activities – adultery with the devil, witchcraft, nightmares, you name it. How painful it must have been to have one of these tumors, and then to be blamed for the tumor  - and accused of unspeakable acts! Fortunately, we now know that the tumor is caused simply by an error in meiosis – a random occurrence that, of course, has nothing to do with morality or behavior.

http://www.pathologystudent.com/?p=3548

Xray of his chest after the surgery to remove his tumor. You can see the titanium wire holding his ribs together. On the original, you can also see the cavity where the monster sat, but the scan came out really dark.

Déjà vu

So we are back to square one with T's pain level. The cancer has come back with a vengeance and is killing him in pain. He is back on his Morphine drip and Ativan to try and quell his suffering, but he is still pretty bad. He just kind of lays in bed pretty unresponsive. He'll grunt in acknowledgement sometimes when someone talks to him, but his throat is sore from the breathing tube. If this chemo that he finished today doesn't help his pain, we can see him being stuck here for three weeks until the next round. We should get the results from his marrow sample within a week, so that will tell us more about what is happening to him. Dad said that modern chemo therapy is really good because they can write recipes specific to the kind of cancer a patient has. That's comforting to me. We hope that this last round of chemo combined with everyone's fasts and prayers will work to bring down his pain enough for him to come home until his next chemo treatment.

Okay so I have a correction to yesterday's post...I guess Matthew didn't have the surgery to have his port line moved. He went in to have his MRI, but they didn't do the surgery because he was bleeding too much. They might not even perform that surgery anymore because they're not sure if it's causing any damage yet. He bled so much yesterday that they needed to give him two units of blood and two units of platelets. He is resting comfortably now for the first time all week. Let's hope he gets better sooner than later.

Remember the picture like this from two days ago? Well I thought my dad did that to him, but Matthew did that to himself. haha It's nice that he never loses his sense of humor.

David and Joanna Layton with T:

Today the nurses brought him the big bear, and Joanna Layton brought him the nurse bear. I think the nurse one is really cute.

Adam Tieman and Dad

Holding His Brother's Hand

Matthew had another surgery today because his port line was touching his heart. They moved it and took another MRI at the same time. Later in the day he was sent down to the ICU because his nose wouldn't stop bleeding. I don't think they know what is causing that yet though. Here are some pictures from today:

T's first few minutes in the ICU

Hole from mining marrow

Picture of the year. I love this shot.

Dad said there were like 12 people working on him at one time.

Changing the bed is easier when he is knocked out

Heart breaking. He has a breathing tube until he is awake enough to ask for it to come out.

Still out with a breathing tube in draining blood and trying to break a fever.

His hands are strapped to the bed so he doesn't pull everything off of himself when he wakes up.

Sick Bones?

Today was another not so great day. The good news is that the doctors had him on really good pain meds, so his pain level was only at a 2. The bad news is that he had to get another bone marrow sample taken. They decided to take another sample because when they looked at his MRI they saw that his bones were abnormal looking. Normal bones are all the same color, but Matthew's weren't. They think the sarcoma may have spread to his marrow. That's still treatable, it just might take longer.

His procedure was at 2:00PM, but my mom didn't tell him that it was going to happen until around 12:30 because he has anxiety attacks if he has time to think about operations. The last time they took marrow samples, when they poked him 4 times, they did the operation twilight. I asked what that means and my mom said that they drug him enough so he won't remember the operation, but not enough so he won't feel the pain. They can't go as deep for a good sample in a twilight operation either because the patient is in too much pain. When I heard that Matthew experienced that it totally broke my heart. I know he doesn't remember, but it still happened and he consciously felt that pain. Today they knocked him completely out though so he would't feel it at all.

T's procedure today took about two hours, and when he went back to his room he was crying again in pain. My mom had the nurses drug him enough that he would sleep for a long time. He started chemo this morning around 1:30, so that means he will finish on Saturday. The doctors wanted to give him another MRI today to check for a tumor on his spine, but my mom won't let them do it until tomorrow. She wants them to knock T out for that because they move him around so much and from table to table that it would kill him. They can't put him under more than once in a day, so he'll get his MRI tomorrow. I guess they didn't check his spine in the last one, and they want to make sure he doesn't have any tumors there. The doctors said that if his counts are up and everything is looking okay, Matthew can come home on Sunday.

This Sunday is fast Sunday, so my mom called Chad's mission president and asked him to have the missionaries fast for T again. The last time Chad's mission fasted with everyone down here Matthew started getting better really fast. We're worried that if he stays in the hospital for too long he will start dropping a lot of weight and get depressed again. He is already depressed because of everything that has happened this week. I just want Sunday to come so that he can get the blessings from the fast.

I'm not exactly sure what is happening here...my dad just emailed it to me today with no explanation. I'm sure it's just my dad being a dork though. This is what happens when it's his turn to sleep at the hospital I guess. haha

MRI

Matthew is still in a lot of pain today. I talked to my dad this morning, and he said that last night when they got to the ER there was a huge line of people waiting to be taken care of. The nurses saw that Matthew was a bald little cancer kid, so they got him in a room right away though. He didn't sleep all night because of the pain. He just stayed up groaning and clenching. Dad said that last night was the second worst night of Matthew's life, the first one being the first time we took him to the hospital. I went and saw him today at 6:30, and he was still grunting from pain, but he wasn't in tears like last night. I tried feeding him a burrito, but he could barely open his mouth to eat it so I had to cut it up into small pieces. The nurses took him down to get an MRI around 7, so I left. I think he's getting another PT scan sometime soon too just to make sure there is not another tumor growing. I don't think he does, but it's better to be safe than sorry. I'm also not sure about how long he'll be in the hospital, but he is very ready to come home. Today was not the best day, but it wasn't as bad as yesterday, and it can only get better tomorrow.

Not So Good News

Today has been a pretty rough day. Matthew's pain has been getting worse and worse, so by around 6:00 he couldn't even walk. My dad had to kind of carry/drag him around the house for him to use the bathroom. He took a bunch of pain meds this morning, so he pretty much slept through the day. My parents were on the phone with the hospital for a while tonight, and by 8ish they decided to take him back to Phoenix Children's. Matthew's pain was at a 7-8 tonight and he was in tears because he hurt so bad. My dad was able to give T a blessing before they left. My aunt came over with her whole family and we said a family prayer together too. It sucks watching him suffer like this, but hopefully the chemo treatments he will receive tomorrow will work quickly. We're not sure if he'll get chemo in the hospital or in the clinic yet, but we should know by tomorrow. I'll keep everyone posted and will have an update tomorrow.