Peter’s Page

Hello all. Thanks for checking in on Peter’s progress.

The results of Peter’s CT Scans came back on Wednesday and they are clear. His echocardiogram didn’t cause any alert. The bone marrow biopsy results will take a couple days yet. In summary, Peter still shows no evidence of disease.

He is also HAMA negative. This means that he can resume with the 3F8 antibodies soon. The antibody treatment is meant to help keep the cancer at bay by causing Peter’s body to fight against any malicious cells. I believe Ty and Erika are in the process of scheduling the next round of this treatment in NYC.

Because Peter and family are living at my house temporarily, I’ve seen a lot of the little guy recently and he looks great. He had a few bandages from the testing to show off, but is as smiley as always. His focus remains on his next baseball game. Hopefully we’ll hear that his bone marrow is clear as well and he can continue running around the diamond.

Erika and Peter flew to New York City on Sunday evening for Peter’s quarterly testing. This is always an anxious time. Yesterday Peter was measured and weighed, some blood was drawn, but not much else. He weighs more than he’s ever weighed and he’s grown a centimeter and a half since last visit. I think these are good signs.

Today and tomorrow he will go through the big tests: Scans, bone marrow biopsy, an echocardiogram, and more. Some results should be fairly immediate, while the bone marrow biopsy usually takes a week or so.

I’ll keep you posted.

It has been some time since we have posted, and there are many new things to update. First and foremost, Peter is doing great! People always comment on how great he looks. He is playing baseball in Lakeville and having a blast! He asks me the day before he has practice or a game “how many hours till baseball?” Sometimes my answer is “oh 30 hours bud.” He has made a lot of new friends and really looks forward to playing. In case you don’t know, Lakeville is in the Twin Cities, yes we have made the move from the North Country and made our way back to the metro. I have taken a coaching position at Eden Prairie High School and Erika will be working in the Edina office of her company Tradition Mortgage (call her, it is a great time to buy a house). It was a very difficult decision, as we have spent 90% of our married life in Brainerd and all our children were born there. But the move back to the metro really was a great opportunity for our entire family. We will never forget our 9 years in Brainerd and we will be back often. We have yet to decide where in the metro we are going to live, but because of the current real estate marketk, we will have MANY options.

Peter did a great job as chair person of the Rosemount Relay for Life, and the entire Eigner/Hanson clan had a great time. Then the party at Trent and Melissa’s was great and everyone had a blast. Thanks to them for hosting, for Cary and Perri for the entertainment, and to all our friends who showed up. Kate and Ellie are having a ball being in the metro, as they get to go to a new park just about every day. They also get to see there Gramma Mary, Aunts, Uncles and all their cousins a lot more, so they think that is cool. We also had a great 4th of July in Brainerd, and spent 4 fun days at Gramma and Grampa Poopsters.

Peter and Erika are going to New York City next week for his 3 month check up and scans. Hopefully while he is out there he will be HAMA negitive and be able to get another round of the anti-body treatment soon. Even though Peter’s appetite is great, energy level is high and seems to be doing great, going out for the scans and test is always very nerve wracking, as you never know what is going on inside. Thank you all in advance for your continued prayers for Peter, we truly could not be doing this without all of you! Well that should get you caught up a little, and again thanks for continuing to check this site and your tremendous support.

It’s been awhile since Ty or I have posted! I’ve intended to sit down and write quite a few times lately but I just haven’t had the chance. I hope to soon – I have a lot to say (a shock, I know). I wanted to put a link to a nice article done by the Rosemount Town Pages this week. http://www.rosemounttownpages.com/articles/index.cfm?id=19744&section=News
We are really excited about the Relay and looking forward to seeing lots of friends and family! A big thanks to Trent & Melissa for putting together what will be a really fun party on Saturday – if you know Melissa, you know will be a great party!!
Very quickly, Peter is doing well. He has been eating well and playing A LOT. He is playing baseball in Lakeville (yep, Lakeville – that’s another update!!) Thanks to some friends for allowing him to join their team mid-season. He is loving it! He played his first game last night and Ty said he had a great time and hit the ball a time or two! These things all still seem a little bitter-sweet to me, as we just never know what the future holds for Peter and his growth, physical abilities, health, etc. So we cherish the fact that he is participating and fitting right in!
One other thing that is REALLY exciting is Peter is HAMA-negative! We will re-test him in a couple of weeks to make sure he is still negative, since last time we thought he was and went to NY for treatment, he ended up being positive, and it’s very dangerous to treat “positive” kids with the 3F8 antibody. We hope to be heading east very soon for another round of the treatment, and he will have all the tests done in New York in July as well.
I’ll stop here since I could get carried away, but thanks for checking in! Erika

Peter has been chosen as an honorary chairperson for the Relay for Life in Rosemount this month. The event is on June 20th in Central Park, Rosemount, MN at 6:00 PM. Erika has started a Peter’s People team and you can  join the team by clicking here and signing up. Click on the Join Our Team link and register as a Team Member. If you cannot participate, but would like to donate to the American Cancer Society, you can also do that by clicking the Donate link.

If you have a Peter’s People t-shirt, please wear it. I will have a limited number of shirts/sizes at the event for sale, so you may want to arrive before 6:00 if you would like to buy them. Those proceeds will also go to the American Cancer Society.

Then the celebration continues on Saturday at 4:30 PM and into the evening. Peter’s Aunt and Uncle, Melissa and Trent Eigner, will be hosting a party at their Rosemount home. Jason Perri will be providing live music, food and drink are provided, and kids will be able to play on jumpers. Please join!

12465 Blanca Ave
Rosemount, MN 55068
Click for a Map

Well I thought I would post something prior to the busy weekend. Sunday is Peter’s 6th birthday and he is very excited about that. Erika and I are thrilled, as each birthday with all our kids is a blessing. It has been a busy time for b-day’s around here. Ellie turned 4 on April 29th and Erika’s birthday was April 30th, you can ask her how old she is! Ellie enjoys being 4 and acting like she is 14 and Kate she just enjoys all the ice cream! Peter and Ellie have there first soccer games on Saturday, and then we are going to the twin cities for a friends 40th and will celebrate Peter’s birthday while we are in town. On Sunday we are taking the kids to the Mall of America amusement park, they are pretty excited! Also, Erika and I want to again say thanks for all of your support of Peter and our family, we are truly fortunate. Like you, we are very thankful that Peter is doing so well and you all have been a huge part of that. Anyway we will let you know how the big weekend goes, if you are anywhere but Minnesota you should enjoy your weekend, we are supposed to get a couple inches of SNOW!

Let’s get right to it. The bone marrow studies, including four aspirates and two biopsies are all NEGATIVE. Again, no evidence of disease!

With that round of stressful testing behind the Eigners, a new plan unfolds. They will be back the University of Minnesota on April 29th for a renogram and an appointment with the Pediatric Nephrologist. They’re still trying to assess his kidney function (or damage) and determine how long he will need to continue with blood pressure medication.

During this trip they will also draw and mail a blood sample to NYC for HAMA testing. The testing will continue every four weeks until he is HAMA negative and can continue with the 3F8 antibody treatments. The next trip to NYC for testing is scheduled for July, but hopefully he’ll be out East sooner for the antibody treatment.

The picture is Peter and Kate with a beast that I can’t classify. It’s one of many photos from the wonderful trip to Disney. A complete photo album of the trip is to come.

I’m still alive, although feeling guilty about my lack of updates. I guess no news is good news until it’s time for scheduled tests. I just spoke with Erika and some results are back.

• The MIBG shows no evidence of disease!
• The CT scan shows no evidence of disease!
• Peter is still HAMA positive

I can’t express how great that news is. I just know how I’d feel if I had to type out a different test result. None of us expect anything other than clear tests from here on out, yet we know that reality guarantees nothing. So celebrate every great result.

It sounds like the trip is sailing by. Peter is doing well throughout, even though he had to get poked for a temporary line that was removed today while he was sleeping during the bone marrow scope. The results of that test will be back in a week or so.

The three of them were given tickets to the Mets baseball game tonight; Peter will enjoy that.

I’ll keep the test results coming as we know them.

We’ve been on the go! We spent the last week at Camp Sunshine, a 6-day retreat for families of children with life-threatening illnesses (this was one of the oncology weeks). It was really refreshing and a very special week for the 5 of us. The camp is held at Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park/Three Bears Lodge in Wisconsin. It was a busy week; full of really fun activities (“day camp”) for the kids, lots of playing in the waterpark, and some really quality discussion time for the adults. It is a camp designed as much for the parents as the kids, which makes it really unique. It ends with an unbelievable evening of all kids (cancer kids and siblings) releasing their “Wish Boats” into the lazy river in the water park. The kids make their boats during the week, and they each have a little candle that is lit while they make a wish and send the boats onto the river. We met lots of wonderful people, including 3 other NB families whom we had not met before! The camp was founded in Maine, and I believe they have camps running out there almost year-round! Thank you Donna for encouraging us to go, and a huge thank you to Mrs. Titus, Mrs. Bailey and Mrs. Johnson, Peter and Ellie’s wonderful teachers who have been more than accommodating and understanding about them missing a lot of school lately!
We went straight to Mpls on Friday so we could attend a benefit for our little friend Ella Hauschildt (caring bridge / ellahope) and it was a blast, and a very big success! We had a great time and got to catch up with lots of high school friends.
We got home yesterday afternoon and will head back to the cities tonight to fly out to NY on Monday morning. Peter will have the full gamut of tests again this week. It’s hard to believe it’s already been 3 months since the last round. We are cautiously hopeful that his HAMA level will be lower again; maybe even low enough to get some treatment in the near future? They assure us his level will come down; but some kids’ levels come down in 2 months; some kids in 6 or 9 months.
Best of all, Peter has been able to spend a lot of time lately being a normal kid. I asked him the other day what he wished for, and he said “Well why don’t wishes usually come true?” I said, “What makes you think that?” and he said “I have wished to be happy all the time!” So I guess he has pretty high standards. He is about the happiest kid I know – it’s pretty rare that he gets down or upset.
Well enough of my rambling (once again you can see why it’s a really good thing that Uncle Matt does the writing!) We will get pictures posted of Disney, Camp Sunshine, etc. Matt is working on a new photo album!
We appreciate your prayers as we head into another agonizing week of testing!

Well I guess they call it Magic Kingdom for a reason! We were on Peter’s Make-A-Wish trip to Disney World last week and it was, well, magical. I wouldn’t classify it as a relaxing family vacation but it was so much fun! The kids deserved every minute of it, and that alone was priceless!
Our trip actually began with a nights’ stay at the waterpark hotel in Bloomington where the kids had a blast! A limo picked us up early the next morning and brought us to the airport where we were escorted onto the plane so Peter could go in the cockpit and meet the pilots, see the view from there and take a few pictures. Once in Orlando, we were met by a Make-A-Wish volunteer who helped us get our luggage and into the rental car they had reserved for us. A short drive later we arrived at “Give Kids the World Village’ and boy, that is exactly what they do! I can’t say enough about the accommodations, the hospitality and volunteers (over 1,000 every week!), and the fun they have in store for the whole family! After a little mini golf, a train ride, the remote control boats, it was over to the Ice Cream Shop which is open daily from 7am-9pm! Need I say we tried out the product a few times? They serve 3 meals every day, there’s a carousel outside the “Castle of Miracles”, a “Gingerbread House”, “House of Hearts”, a theater, and on and on… we could have told the kids that was Disney World and they would have been happy!
It would be hard to recap the entire week in one short post, but we went to Disney 3 days (Magic Kingdom for 2 and Animal Kingdom for 1), Sea World and Universal Studios. We spent the last day at Wet ‘n Wild which the kids loved too!
We were joined by Troy, Macer, Grace & Lily and Grandma Mary for the first 2 days, and Grandpa & Grandma Hanson for the next 3. I think everyone agrees the trip could not have been any more fun! The kids were so good (not waiting in any lines doesn’t hurt). Peter thoroughly enjoyed being the “big boy” with his little sisters and cousins. It was very cute how he took the lead to help them meet princesses, go to the next ride or whatever. We were amazed at Peter’s energy. Had we taken this trip 1 year ago when we had originally planned it would have been a very different experience. He has come a long way!
There are many to thank for making this trip a reality. Make-A-Wish Minnesota (especially Molly, our Wish Coordinator!), the Central MN Choppers (bike club who raised funds for Peter’s wish), Give Kids the World Village and all the volunteers. I know I am forgetting many. Since I don’t write often, I probably haven’t done a sufficient job of thanking people since this journey began in August of 2006. Life was a bit too overwhelming to keep up on “thank you notes” which I have felt bad about since the very beginning!! Please know that your support, prayers, gifts, generosity of time and resources does not, and has not, gone unnoticed or appreciated. We talk often (daily?!) about how lucky we are and the unbelievable support system we have…we will never forget. Thank You from the bottom of our hearts!

* Update – 2:00 PM: The line is out and Peter is feeling good. He has an IV in his arm, however, so he’s not free yet. He should be getting out of the hospital shortly.

It’s time to get rid of those dangling lines! Peter is in the hospital this morning to have his hickman removed from his chest. He will be put under for the procedure and hopefully by about 11:00 AM he’ll be awake and comfortable. Now Peter might get mad at me someday for this picture, but I’ll risk it. Here you can see the hickman that is being removed. And you can see Peter flaunting his substantial brawn.

BGSU
On Saturday morning (tomorrow) Ty, Erika and Peter will fly to Ohio to visit Ty’s alma mater, Bowling Green State University. The BGSU hockey team will be raising funds for children’s cancer on Saturday. It’s a big day at BGSU with men’s and women’s basketball games during the day and a hockey game at night. During all three events there will be a silent auction with proceeds going to the Peter Eigner Benefit Fund.

Here is a quote from Ty and some additional information from the press release:

“Situations like this really show what it means to be part of the Bowling Green family. It makes me very proud to be a Falcon when I see the responses of so many alumni and community members stepping up to help a past Falcon and his family going through a tough time.”

Peter and his family are traveling to Bowling Green and will be in attendance at the BGSU-Michigan State hockey game this Saturday, and appropriately, just prior to the opening faceoff, Peter will be smiling and doing something he loves…dropping the ceremonial first puck on the ice.

Thank you to all those Falcons that are making this day happen.

Kidney Update
The tests from last week didn’t product any concrete results yet, but they have revealed a more complete picture. Peter’s left kidney appears to be damaged from surgery and inter-operative radiation. It is smaller than the right, it didn’t take as much dye during the test, and the top of it might have been slightly cut off. His right kidney has an infarct, meaning that the blood flow is cut off somewhere.

It doesn’t seem that any of this should cause major problems. And it’s not known why his blood pressure spiked well after surgery (October). The next step is to have a Renogram on April 29th and I really don’t know any specifics about the goals of that test. Time will tell!

Peter is at the hospital today having some tests on his kidneys. His blood pressure has remained a little beyond the ideal range, even with his daily dose of medication. Hopefully a scan this morning and a consultation with a specialist this afternoon will shed some light on the root cause.

Next week he’s scheduled to get the lines removed from his chest. As I mentioned before, that will be great. They don’t really bother him, but they do inhibit some childhood activities. He is still HAMA positive. Once his levels drop then more antibodies can be scheduled.

The trip to Disney World is right around the corner. I was asking him about it last night and he has some pretty clear ideas about his activities down there.

As some of you noticed, I actually did get the t-shirt sale going again. In fact, I shipped some shirts this morning. Click on the T-Shirt Sale link at the very top of the page to order. Thanks!

I believe this was taken before Peter’s first day of school with sister Ellie.