Important days ahead ...

All is not entirely well in the house of Bird at the moment. On Sunday Adam began complaining of pain in the bone of his right foot, and has since been moving with a definite limp. There is nothing specific that we can relate it back to; he was quite active the previous week - out playing with Jake several afternoons - but there hasn't been an incident or a fall or anything that we could point at to give us the comfort of an innocent explanation. And so our minds naturally turn to a far darker, and far more sinister, cause. We're taken back to the time before his diagnosis when Adam went from unexplained pain, to excruciating pain, brought about by Neuroblastoma in his spine and coccyx.

And then there are other little things that in and of themselves don't seem like much, but that aren't normal. And not normal is not good. Not normal is worrisome. Adam's temperature has been elevated this week, not feverish but higher than 37.0 normal, and quite a bit higher than his usual readings. Adam's blood pressure today was significantly above what it usually is, not high enough to be of clinical concern, but high enough for us to pay attention to it. Elevated temperature and blood pressure are also symptoms that can be caused by Neuroblastoma, and Adam had both when he was diagnosed.

His bloods are still struggling to recover; platelet count is low but more stable than it had previously been, Hb has been dropping whereas before it was relatively good.

It's difficult not to bundle all these things together and end up with a bad bad feeling. Things are a little tense right now. Tomorrow Adam is at the Marsden for bone marrow tests (aspirates and trephines). Next week he is back for CT and MIBG scans. Only then will we have answers to the questions that are consuming us at this time.