The Best Bad News We Could've Gotten

It's Thursday night and we're at home for now. Landon's doctor in St. Louis order a CT Scan this morning which showed the 5cm tumor that showed up on the ultra sound. He's pretty sure the tumor is contained, but it is big enough that they will be removing his kidney. The surgery has been scheduled for Tuesday morning at 7:30, so we'll be heading down again on Monday evening. This all seems very surreal and like a bad dream, but a lot of things were put in perspective today for us. We have so much to be thankful for. First of all that Dr. Baron agreed to see Landon here in Springfield on Tuesday when he doesn't normally see kids. We could've been waiting until next Thursday to see the pediatric urology nurse. Second of all, that Landon has been bleeding so we knew something was wrong. All of the doctors we have talked to say that most children with these kind of tumors don't show any symptoms, until the tumors are large enough you can see them on their abdomen. By then, they're obviously more difficult to treat. Third, Landon's doctor in St. Louis is so great at what he does and so dedicated to his job that our little guy is definitely in great hands. The doctor actually just called here himself at 9:20 this evening to let us know he got the surgery on the books. He squeezed us in first thing this morning for a consultation, ordered the CT Scan, and then came back to his office in between his packed day of surgeries to read the Scan for us. All that with a bed side manner of a pediatric specialist. He's amazing.

There is still a slight chance that the tumor could be benign, but the doctor says statistically speaking, for kids his age, it's more than likely a cancerous tumor. It does look like it's in Stage 1 though from the scan, so after removing the kidney and lymph nodes around it to be tested, we'll know how long he'll need chemo. And from the sound of it the chemo is more of a preventative measure.

After spending a day in a place like Children's Hospital, and seeing so many very sick kids, you realize just how blessed you are. Our world has definitely been shaken this week, but when our doctor was telling us that he could put us on the add-on list for surgeries on Friday, but the priority of Landon's surgery wouldn't be high enough to pass up surgeries for removing brain tumors, Chad and I both realized just how blessed we were. It's on his kidney. He's got two. People live with one, and when he said 99.9% curable, I was saying serious thank yous on the way out of the hospital.

We also just want to thank EVERYONE for all of their thoughts and prayers. It's so uplifting to know we have so many people praying for Landon. Family, friends, friends of family, friends of friends, the boys and girls soccer teams and their families, everyone who picked up the slack and helped out with Chad's soccer camp this week, people we don't even really know....there just are no words to express how much your support and prayers mean. He was a trooper today, although was pretty much beside himself that he wasn't allowed to have a drink. (I mean who is denied their sippy cup for cryin' out loud?!) After making it through the scan though and giving full possession of his juice, he was his normal charming self. That is until we came home and he woke up from a 2 and a half hour nap and the "12-36 hours of irritability" as a side of effect of the sedatative kicked in. We can handle irritable though. Culver's ice cream at least curbed it for awhile.

Please continue to pray for good news for our little man. Prayers for strength and the best outcomes we can have, and also for our Dr. and all of the nurses taking care of Landon (and us, too.) I'll put up more updates as we have them. THANK YOU for all your love and support.