Day Twenty

We spent most of the day angry. Yelling at doctors. Trying to impart our sense of urgency in them. Begging for tests, for answers. We yelled. We cried. We pulled all the strings we knew. And none of it matters.

The only thing that matters is the news. We got the MRI. James' tumor is back. All the way back. It's filled the space left from when we removed it, and spread like tendrils from a wildfire through his brain, coating the top of his brain, clustering around his brain stem. The images are vivid and terrifying. And it all happened in two weeks. Two weeks ago, James had a successful surgery. Today we learned in the time between that surgery and the date scheduled to begin his chemo, his tumor has not only returned to full strength but actually become worse.

Rhabdoids are extremely aggressive tumors. James' tumor exists in the most aggressive category of rhabdoid tumors. Our oncologist was genuinely surprised by how quickly this happened. You could see it in his eyes. This changes our landscape, and our world. We now have two options. The first is to take James home, to make him as comfortable as possible, and try to show him just how much we love him in the time we have left. For that, the timetable the doctors are talking about is expressed in days and weeks. Eventually the tumor will damage his brain stem sufficiently that he will simply stop breathing. The other option is to immediately begin chemotherapy- another surgery to remove the tumor would be pointless, as during James' recovery time the tumor would revive itself completely as it just has. Our oncologist expressed extreme skepticism about the usefulness of chemotherapy at this point- given the aggressiveness of the tumor, any gains would likely eventually be erased. Of the children he has treated with tumors similar to James', none have survived.

They asked us for a decision. We couldn't make one. We asked for the night to decide. It's the longest we can wait to begin chemo if we are going to do that- every hour, every day matters. On one hand, for James in his current condition chemo means chemo in the PICU, remaining on the ventilator, and getting sicker. Possibly sick enough to where when it becomes clear that the chemo isn't even buying us time- the most it could do- we won't be able to take him home. We'll lose him here. Home means we'll watch our son die in the room we decorated for him less than a year ago, in the convertible crib that never made it to the a toddler bed stage. There is no right decision. There is no wrong decision. We're beyond that duality.

We don't know what we're going to do. We feel like we're being forced to choose between making James suffer and giving up. I abhor both. We were prepared for a war, for a marathon of chemo and a devastating year of trying to make James better. But we never even got to fire the first shot. James is our perfect angel, he was born perfect in every way, and he remains perfect. Even now, with everything he's been through, his natural resilience remains. He holds on tight to your fingers. He's so far away from stable- so far away from three weeks ago or even Friday. His breathing remains in doubt. His heart rate is irregular.

Please don't tell us what to do. We don't need opinions, or second guesses. Please just pray for guidance and that we have clarity for our decision. Pray that it brings us peace, either way. Pray for James, that he not suffer, whichever course we choose. You all have walked this far with us and we thank you. We will certainly need all the support we can get moving forward.

Day Six

When I thought about the days that would be the longest, I always assumed that day would be yesterday, waiting on James to get out of his surgery and to know the results one way or the other. In a strange way though, today felt longer. Maybe because some of the adrenaline is beginning to fade and Kara and I are starting to remember that we're mortal. Maybe because we just didn't do much, and so the day crept by in anticipation of action- relatively minor actions- that just took much longer than we thought they would. We thought we'd make it back to the floor by midday, we didn't make it until 7:00.

Last night Kara got quite sick in the evening (food poisoning+ no sleep= violently ill) so I stayed up at the hospital alone with James. I'm glad she rested. In many ways, the evening routine in the PICU has become normal, expected even. Every now and then one of James' levels will spike. It's almost always nothing. After a few days I now know how to silence every alarm, though I'm still working on how to work the IV machine alarms. The silencer only buys you 2 minutes (the ones on the floor, where you can completely mute the alarms are SO MUCH better), so it's worthwhile to find a nurse in the meantime if it's serious. James came through the operation well and was on pain meds, so he woke up only briefly, once at my prompting, to eat some pedialyte which was the only thing he could have because he would be under general anesthesia later that day.

The morning routine starts somewhere between 6:00-7:00. The doctors begin to creep in to make their rounds, and the day nurses arrive along with the changing of the guard. We've become much more adept at medical lingo than we were before- "the floor" for non ICU. The "magnet" for an MRI machine. An "admit" your nurse is getting another patient and will be busy. "Give report" what they do on shift changes.

Our neurosurgeon arrived with his "groupies" as we call them, the assembly of some combination of PAs, residents, and fellows that follows behind him like a dutiful tail wherever he goes, rarely speaking and saving their questions for the walk between patient rooms. I'm glad their are so many of them. It means a doctor is never too far away.

Kara arrived back with a nice, huge, cup of coffee- (a Kara creation, venti mocha cocunut latte) and we started our day. Despite initially being scheduled for an MRI at 9, other emergencies meant that the MRI was postponed until 1:30. Although the wait did eat up a good chunk of our day, we were grateful that we were now capable of being bumped- we'd exited the critical stage in which James' condition required that he be given first priority. Similarly, for whatever reason our room at the PICU was a "special" room with positive pressure that was needed to treat another patient, so we had to move to another PICU room. As no less than three people came in to apologize for this, I got the distinct impression I was supposed to be mad about it. I was just glad we didn't need a special room. I like not being a first priority at the hospital.

That said, I can understand why some people would get mad frequently in situations like this. Yesterday when James was having his surgery I went up to the surgical waiting room to check (for the third time) if they had our contact information correct- all 4 possible numbers in descending order of priority. A man there was complaining to the staff that his entire family couldn't stay in that waiting area. The staff apologized and he demanded to speak to a "manager." While I thought that was a bad approach all things considered- a waiting room is not a restaurant- I understood where he was coming from. There's no control when your child's in the OR or that sick. But you can control where you sit and who you sit with- or at least you'd like to. There are a lot of things I could get mad about. But I choose not to. My anger will not help my son unless I'm angry for him, not for me. In any event, in my experience the staff has been fantastic- little things, like taking a lock of James' hair during the surgery and giving it to us as his first "hair cut" (he's actually already had one) go a long way.

The new PICU room had a gorgeous view of downtown Dallas, far and away the best view we've had so far. I know it's silly to keep track, but it's something to pass the time. The wait for James' MRI kept getting longer- building anticipation. Though we knew the surgery went well there's that nagging need for closure- we wanted to remove the possibility of any more immediate surgeries from our future as soon as possible.

Finally, we received the go ahead for the MRI and met our fourth anesthesiologist so far. It seems strange that a procedure which shook us a few days ago- we were terrified of James going under anesthesia for the first time, now seems tame, almost routine. I don't know that we're used to it or that we ever will be, but we're certainly starting to appreciate relative scale of each procedure, and adjust our concern level accordingly. Ironically, I recall that there was a real question back in April about whether the "risk" of the CT scan were worthwhile given his fall. We're well past worrying about the risk of CT scans- and as Kara said, it's a real blessing that we got that scan so that our doctors now have a baseline to compare James' scan from last week to.

After the MRI we returned to the PICU and waited our the results so that we could receive the orders to move down to the floor. This wait was hardest, though again, the fact that there didn't appear to be a need for him to speak with us immediately can only be perceived as a positive- if he had things more important to do, that meant our son wasn't having another surgery today to remove missed tumor. I finally got bored enough to turn on the TV in the room. Strangely, even though we've had a TV in every room we've been in I'd never turned one on. In a weird way, there had just never been enough down time. We had the chance to meet one of our nurses from a few nights before again. She told us about a camp she ran for children like James who had brain tumors- 220 kids every summer, many of them who had their tumors as young as James and couldn't remember a thing. It was great to hear about so many success stories, all of these little messages lift our spirits and to envision a normal, happy, and of course healthy future for James. This nurse was kind enough to page our surgeon for us, who gave us the results which Kara already described below in some detail. To summarize, good news. The tumor is 95% gone (no one ever expected them to get all of it and we knew they wouldn't) there will hopefully not be a need for more surgery.

Following the results we were fortunately able to quickly move back to the floor and get settled in there, where Kara demanded that I go home for the evening. It was difficult to leave, to let go of the illusion that James somehow needed me there to take care of him. But Kara, as she often is, is right. James needs us rested to take care of him, we're useless to him exhausted and falling asleep in rocking chairs as I did earlier today. So now I'm home and Kara's spending the night with James. I took my first shower out of the hospital since Wednesday morning. I laid in a bed larger than my college dorm bed. I got in bed at 9:00, but was still too keyed up to sleep although I'm exhausted so I wrote this post in bits and pieces.

I cannot thank all of you enough for your thoughts and prayers for James, Kara, and our family. Your support has been overwhelming in just the right way- I am amazed by how many different people from all stages and parts of our life have reached out to us in this time and helped us. We could not function without your support.

Here is a picture of James from about a month ago- he is playing and happy. He likes to throw the parts of this toy when he tires of eating them. I pray that soon we will take many more pictures just like this, normal in every way.

MRI Results

The MRI results came back this evening and they are great! Dr. Sacco feels very confident that he got out about 95% of the tumor. The remaining 5% (which could actually be less!) should be able to be taken care of with the chemo/radiation treatments that we will do next. We are SOOOOO thankful for this amazing news. I can't tell you how much of a weight has been lifted off my shoulders!

We have moved down to the floor now, and will stay here until further notice. We should meet with our neuro-oncologist tomorrow to confirm that we won't need anymore surgery in the near future, but we feel strongly that she will agree with Dr. Sacco. The next step is waiting for the pathology results that will most likely take until the end of the week!

At this point we are really living day-to-day. Sometimes it's hour-to-hour. We aren't looking at the big picture that all of this means, because honestly it's just too overwhelming. Right now we know that our sweet boy is doing well and is happy. And that is all we can ask for today!

My dad got James a portable dvd player that we can use in the hospital and when we go to chemo. James has never watched movies before, so I wasn't sure how he would react. Our pediatrician was here the other day and I had turned it on for James to watch Cars. I started apologizing to her because I know that TV watching is terrible for your child. She told me that throughout this journey I am going to be doing alot of things that I never thought that I would do as a parent. I need to do whatever I can to get through it, and she thought the dvds were a great idea.

Speaking of dvds, does anyone have ideas about how to entertain an 8 month old during chemo treatments?! If you have ideas, I'd love to hear them. So far I have movies. That's the only thing on my list!

And finally, dear friends, let me thank you for everything. I know I sound like a broken record, but I could not be going through this journey without the wonderful, caring, supportive friends and family in our lives. I truly feel that prayer lifts us up and carries us when our hearts are too heavy to hold. Thank you for sustaining me and breathing life into me when I wasn't sure I had breath left. There is not an hour that goes by that I don't reflect on your kind words of encouragement. You are such a blessing to me and I am so very grateful for you.

Still waiting on the MRI results...

We are still here waiting for the MRI results from today. James was scheduled to be in the MRI at 90:00 this morning, but then we were bumped for several other pressing cases. We are just thankful to be the "bumpee" rather than the "bumper"! It breaks our hearts knowing that other families are more critical than James and need to go first though.

So James went back for his MRI around 1:30. We got to sit around and chat with his sweet nurse, who I got along with really well! Every nurse at Children's has been amazing. I cannot say enough good things about them. They have truly been so supportive and positive, and we cannot have asked for a better experience.

James came back around 3:30 from his MRI and we are back in the PICU now. We were hoping to have moved down to "the floor" as they call it here, which is the 9th floor neuro floor. We are so fortunate that they let us keep all of our stuff (which is alot, it seriously looks like we have moved in!) in our room on 9 so that we haven't been dragging it back and forth. I can't tell you what a blessing that has been! The room on 9 also has a shower/restroom in the room which makes a big difference from the PICU.

So right now we are waiting for neurology to read the MRI and release us to the floor. It's hard waiting- we are trusting in God and the physicians, but we are anxious to know! The MRI is really just a benchmarking tool today. It won't change our treatment plan, but if there is a section of tumor that was left they will go in through James' original incision and remove that portion. We would really love for James not to have to go through another brain surgery! 3 procedures since Thursday is enough for us.

We will update when we know more....

As always, THANK YOU for your continued prayers, thoughts, love and "good vibes". :) We appreciate them so much!