And so the Cancer Battle Begins

On Tuesday Logan had an ultrasound to check out a weird lump on his stomach that the doc thought might be a hernia.  I took Davis with me thinking it would be a short visit.  Well, after a very long and quiet ultrasound, and the tech going out a few times, I got the hunch that things were not looking good.  The radiologist came and told me my doctor was going to call me and to go into a room to wait.  I knew things were not good at this point.  I asked the radiologist to tell me what was going on and he said they found something unexpected.  Total shock, fear and dizziness.  I talked to my doc and he told me it was cancer and that he was so sorry.  Nothing prepares you for that.  It felt like an out of body experience kind of.  I called Dan and told him to come right away and that it wasn't good. He had a very long drive to Primary Children's.  So, we spent the rest of the day at the hospital doing tests.  Scans, x-ray, EKG, blood and then Logan was admitted to the hospital to prepare for a biopsy the next day.  The biopsy went well and they got a great sample for us and for research. We got to go home a few days ago and are trying to enjoy the weekend before we start all this.  We won't know for sure what type until Tuesday, but they are pretty confident it is a minor variant of a typical Wilms tumor.  We aren't sure if it is favorable or not, but Wilms tumors tend to respond well to chemo.  So, we are hopeful.  There is a large tumor on his kidney and a little in his lung.  It is too large to operate on at this point. They will take out the kidney after about 6 rounds of chemo.  Then we will do more chemo and radiation to get rid of the rest.  According to the oncologist, most childhood cancers are just luck.  They aren't like adult cancers that have environment, genes, and diet as factors.  It's obviously an emotional roller coaster but Logan is handling things really well.  Dan and I are doing okay.  We are doing our very best to leave it in God's hands, but I find myself having to re-submit my will to His every 5 minutes.  My mind sometimes wanders and I have to make it stop.

The love that we feel from family and friends and our wonderful neighborhood and ward is what I consider the kind of love that you can only experience in Heaven or at a time like this on Earth.  We feel so much love and support and it's amazing to see everyone's different talents and skills being used to make us feel okay in every area.  We have the gift givers, the thoughtful texters, the Jazz ticket givers, the food makers, the babysitters, my personal secretary who gets me babysitters when I need them, the prayers, the fasters, the secret toy/note droppers, the nurse friends, those who have been through the battle themselves.  Really, we have some of everything that we need and we feel so blessed to have this kind of support.  I know anyone would do anything to help and it's just amazing.  So, from Logan's own words, "I got this".  We will start the fight and hope and pray and expect miracles, because we know that nothing is too hard for God.  I will update this blog as often as I can so that we can get everyone who wants to follow our progress the updates without me having to write so many texts.  Thank you for caring, we love you all.