It’s been a little while since I’ve shared a Kobe update, and this time we actually have some new information to share.

And thankfully, some of it is really good news.

Kobe continues to take his targeted therapy, and overall he’s doing well.

We did have one little medication adventure along the way. Kobe spiked a pretty high fever one weekend, which landed us in the ER just to make sure there wasn’t anything else going on. Thankfully, everything pointed to the fever being a side effect of his medication.

He got a short break from the meds, which happened to fall during fair week…so I don’t think he was terribly disappointed about that timing. 😂

His oncologist has since lowered his dose, and so far he’s been doing well with it. We also learned that if the fever happens again, we can call Penn and let them help guide us through what to do rather than automatically heading to the ER.

His head also continues to heal really well.

At our appointment Tuesday, we met with his surgeon and now have a plan for the next step.

In November, Kobe will have reconstructive surgery on his scalp. The surgeon is hoping to shrink the open area by possibly as much as 80%, which would be a HUGE difference.

After months and months of daily bandage changes and watching that area slowly heal, the possibility of making it that much smaller feels pretty exciting.

And then we got another piece of encouraging news.

Kobe recently had Signatera bloodwork done.

This is a really interesting test because it uses information from Kobe’s actual tumor to create a personalized blood test. They can then look in his blood for tiny pieces of tumor DNA that match his melanoma.

His first test came back…

NEGATIVE! 🙌🤍

In the cancer world, we’ve learned to be careful about getting too far ahead of ourselves, but a negative result is certainly something we’re going to celebrate.

It doesn’t mean the monitoring stops. Far from it.

They’ll continue doing scans and repeating the blood test to watch closely for any signs of recurrence.

So we’re still very much in the watching-and-following-up part of this journey.

Our calendar currently includes dermatology, 3D body imaging to help monitor his skin and moles, genetics, another oncology appointment, and now reconstructive surgery in November.

Which means…

Apparently our car still knows the way to Philadelphia. 😂

When people hear that someone is finished with surgery or is doing well, I think it’s easy to imagine that cancer treatment has an ending point where everyone just goes back to normal.

I’m learning that it doesn’t really work that way.

There are medications.

Scans.

Blood tests.

Skin checks.

Appointments.

And that little voice in the back of your mind that would really like every future test result to say the same thing this one did.

Negative.

But right now, Kobe is doing well. His head is healing. We have a plan to make the area significantly smaller. He’s being watched very closely.

And his first Signatera test was negative.

So today, we’re going to let good news be good news. 🤍

There will be more appointments, more trips to Philadelphia, another surgery, and plenty more waiting ahead.

But for now…

We’ll take the win.

With coffee, prayers & a little bit of good news ☕🙏🤍

– Stacy