Evan's Surgery

We just got home from the hospital. Yesterday, at 4:00 pm, Evan went in for his surgery to remove the mass. Shortly before the nurses came in to take Evan to the OR, he fell asleep in Debbie's arms. Deacon Bill, who baptised Evan on Sunday, was nice enough to stop by and give Evan a blessing and help reassure us before the surgery. Evan awoke about 3 hours later, back in Debbie's arms. All in all, the surgery was a success. The surgeon, Dr Brand, was able to remove all of the tumor and did not need to cut or remove Evan's collar bone, and there were no other complications. Unfortunately, we did find out that the tumor was malignant and is consistent with neuroblastoma. We should get the official pathology results for the tumor, limp node, bone and bone marrow biopsies by the end of this week. On Friday, Evan will go in for a whole body bone scan, then he'll have the MIBG scan on Wednesday next week. We'll then meet with the oncologist on Thursday, March 6th to discuss the pathology and scan results and begin planning out the treatment process if needed. For now, we are still hopeful that this was the only mass and it has not spread to his bones or limp nodes. If it has not spread and if the surgeon was able to remove the complete tumor (no residues cells), no additional treatment would be necessary, just years of testing and followups. For now, it's just another waiting game. A week doesn't sound that long, but then I remember that it hasn't yet been a week since the mass was found, yet it feels like it's been a few months.

For now, we're just glad that Evan has recovered so quickly from the surgery. It didn't affect his appetite or his happiness one bit. He was a bit groggy last night of course, but today, he's already moving around and smiling and laughing a lot. One of the side affects of the surgery is that Evan now has a permanent Horner's Syndrome due to cutting into the nerves to remove the mass. In the scheme of things, this is a small price to pay and things can be done later if needed to make this less noticeable.

Thank you all so much for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.