Everything seems to have some sort of twist to it. An unexpected, short or long, big or small, kind of glitch. Luke’s bone marrow biopsy and lumbar puncture were on time last Friday. Check-in, wait, go to the triage room, vitals, blood tests, wait. Meet with triage nurse, ONC fellow, procedure nurse, anesthesiologist, surgeon, ONC attending, post-op nurses. Each one listens to Lukes heart, lungs, asks how he is feeling and discusses how much food he has been enjoying at home. I relay the specific type of needle to use that helps Luke not get spinal headaches about 50 times. We go over allergies with each person. We get updates on how many people are in front of us, when they are turning over the procedure room, and a ten-minute warning until go time. This is all happens over about 2 hours if all on time. We walk to the procedure room, go over all the above things again and position Luke on the bed on his side. I touch him wherever I can-his leg, his arm, his shoulder, so he can feel I am there until he is asleep. I kiss his head and say “love you, see you in five minutes.” (it isn’t five minutes but I say that every time because the next thing he knows will feel like he was only asleep for 5 minutes) He smiles and says “love you.” Luke counts down from 10 as I watch the white propofol inject into him. He’s asleep and I leave the room, they shut the door, and I walk to the recovery room and wait. I have tears every time. My heart rate is less every time but it doesn’t get easier watching my boy have to go through this. The bravery he shows every single time is unbelievable. I am pinched with gratitude that God chose me to be he his mom, every time I watch a procedure door close. I think that is when the tears come. They are grateful tears, yet sad tears. When they are done with his procedures he is rolled into the recovery room where his Dad and I are waiting. They hook him up to all the “things”- blood pressure, pulse ox, transfer his oxygen, blah blah. He is sound asleep. I kiss his head 100 times and start whispering in his ear how everything went great, he did awesome, it’s all over, and on and on. The annoying mom continues! We have two recovery nurses, surgical nurse, and surgeon with us. The anesthesiologist was there but quickly left as she was heading downstairs to another patient. The attending oncologist, Dr. Maloney (who is another incredible doctor and individual all around), comes in to tell us the next steps as his blood pressure starts beeping. She looks up at his reading and said “is that for real?” Lukes BP dropped to 64/21 for many minutes. They ask us “if this is normal for Luke post procedure to drop. Does he do this?” We answer “nope.” There are nurses on the phone with anesthesiologist, there are differing opinions on what to do. We move him off his side to his back, lower his head below his heart with the bed, take off the warm blankets and I continue to try and get him to respond. I’m rubbing his face and asking him to nod if he can hear me. Eventually, he nods and gives a quick smirk smile. I’m not sure what ends up working or if they all work. His BP starts to rise and he begins to wake up. He was just having a nice cozy dream. This was the ‘lil glitch this time around. I refer to this time in my life as a roller coaster. This felt more like a flying trapeze stunt. A quick high, low, flip, dismount, and then it’s over. I’m glad there is a safety net below. Luke walked out of the hospital about an hour after all this happened. With a smile on his face. I walked out with him and many new grey hairs. I have to say, again, the people on the 7th floor are exceptional. The schedulers, CA’s, nurses, ONCS, surgeons, BMT coordinators, and on and on. Each one listens to Lukes body but also his words and feelings. They put up with me and my incessant advocacy for my son. They are kind and compassionate people with the most brilliant minds. I guess we all have our place in this world. Luke was able to finish his classes at KU for first semester. All A’s and a B+. Luke went to KU with 22 college credit hours from High School. With that and his credits from last semester, technically he is a second-semester sophomore now. Hard work pays off, just didn’t know this was how it would pay off! I have also preached to him to NOT graduate in 4 years- take 5! I didn’t want the extra time to be spent kicking cancers ass, but oh well. Here we are. We are scheduled to go back in-patient on Thursday. This cycle is another 4-6 weeks of in-patient. Lukes bone marrow results have to come in before we start the next cycle of chemo. We expect these results to be in Tuesday or Wednesday (they come from Seattle-one of the two labs in North America that have this kind of lab testing). Just in time for Dr. Winters to write his next chemo orders and then to get going on Thursday. It is our hope that this chemo is working and Luke has a negative MRD. If it is not negative, Dr. Winters will add one or two additional chemo drugs on to his “road map.” The map still 100% goes to transplant, no matter what. We have not gotten Mason’s genetic results yet. We do not have a 10/10 match yet. Keep testing. Thank you to everyone that has tested! It takes many months for swabs to get in the system so I’m guessing the first people that tested on behalf of Luke are just starting to go into the system. We have been home longer than we thought-much longer. It has been wonderful to have this time with my family and friends. At the same time, there is this angst about getting this going. The sooner we get through this, the sooner Luke can get back to the wonderful life he has built. Buckets of Propofol, Suz