Yesterday we found out that FI's kids' 5 year old cousin has cancer. He was diagnosed with a stage 3 Wilms' tumor. Because of his age, the doctors suspect he may have had it for a few years but that it went undiagnosed. They were originally going to remove the kidney & surrounding lymph nodes today but couldn't because he started running a pretty bad fever last night so they put him on a bunch of meds and were postponing until tomorrow. Today, however, they came back and now think that the reason he's been in so much pain is because he fell and part of it burst and that now some of the cancerous cells have been released into his blood stream. The doctors were waiting on second opinions before proceeding any further.
Everybody's taking it really hard, but still trying to keep chins up and wish for the best. He's a really sweet kid.
-Update-
First off, you guys are awesome. Thanks so much for the T&P. - Little man is still in a lot of pain. I guess blood is still regularly pooling in his abdomen so they had to do transfusions today. Turns out it was 2 tumors that ended up fusing together which is apparently unheard of for this kind of cancer. Surgery to remove it tomorrow, part of it is going to St. Jude's and the rest is going to the National Wilms' Tumor Study. He's looking at a minimum of 19 weeks of chemo. I occasionally do superhero themed charity events so I'm trying to network with other performers to find a Superman in the town he's being treated in to go visit on his birthday in 2 weeks if the doctors will allow non-family in by that point.
-Update 2-
Surgery went better than expected. The mass they removed was around the size of a child's football. We're still waiting to get back some of the test results from the lab.
They did get his feeding tube out yesterday so he started on jello and popsicles. Optimistically, they're hoping to have him home by the end of the week.
Formerly known as flutterbride2b