Bad news

On Monday, Oct. 28, William had a routine lumbar puncture. He's been doing them every 3 months. They put medicine directly into his spinal fluid and also take a little out to test. It was a quick visit. Everything went well. Liam seemed really healthy. Shortly after we got home William's doctor called us. Its never good for the doctor to call. Usually a nurse or secretary calls. She told us that the lab tests showed leukemia in William's spinal fluid. His cancer has relapsed. We spent all day at the hospital Wednesday doing multiple tests. We were lucky to find out that the cancer is not anywhere else in his body, only in the Central Nervous System. We were especially relieved to find out that it has not returned to the bone marrow, as that would have been a much scarier prognosis. William had another lumbar puncture on Wednesday and found that the leukemia had progressed so quickly from Monday to Wednesday, that his treatment needed to begin right away, rather than wait until the next monday as we had planned. He received chemo with the lumbar puncture anyway, but returned Thursday to receive more chemo through his central port and he also started a new steroid that he will be on for 28 days. William has had a really rough few days. He has been tired, nauseated, had terrible headaches, stomach-aches, and now is having extreme leg pain from the steroids. The plan is to have him do a more intense regimen of chemotherapy that will last a year, then he will do radiation, then have another maintenance period for a year similar to what he has been on this last year - but a little harder. this is scarier than the first time around. I had always been relieved that William's body handled the chemo as well as he did and wasn't as concerned with long-term side effects. This time he is getting harder chemo for longer and the fact that it is concentrated in his Central Nervous System (brain) makes me worry a lot. Please pray for William. Pray for his doctors. Pray for our sweet girls. and pray for Mark and I to make good decisions. Thank you for your support. It means so much to us.