Friday, March 13, 2009

The doctors are about 90% sure that Skyelar has a neuroblastoma which is a malignant nerve tumor. Its in his adrenal gland which is actually good because it could have started out in his neck or spinal cord. Its the most common type of childhood and infancy cancer and usually they dont catch it until later in the childs life when symptoms present and by that point its pretty much too late to do anything. The doctors say that because they caught it while he is still cooking the curability rate is excellent. A few cases when they catch it this early do still end up being fatal, but that number is really really low. Basically they caught it before it has a chance to get big bad and nasty and they should just be able to remove the tumor completely. They will get to him immediately after he's born and run any of the necessary tests to confirm the diagnosis. Its bad, but not as bad as it could be. The hopeless case would be if it was the adrenocorticoid carcinoma which is really really aggressive, but they dont think its that. Even the pediatric oncologist said that he should be find because they caught it this early. The good news with moving back to texas is that scottish rite and the childrens hospital are pretty much right down the street from my moms house. So we are staying positive and hopeful because the doctors are positive and hopeful that he will be just fine with treatment. Its just difficult knowing that he's going to have to go through all of that, but at least he should be done with treatment and healthy by the time he can actually remember anything.