Laney is one in a million...literally

In the past two and a half weeks Kevin and I have experienced: surprise, fear, thankfulness, sadness, prayers answered, compassion, the amazing love and support of our parents, wonderful encouragement from our family/friends/coworkers, peace, exhaustion, joy, frustration, hope...and so much more. It's impossible to know what to write or how to sum it all up accurately. But anything negative that we've gone through doesn't even come close to comparing to what sweet Laney has endured...

Monday, November 17th

Laney had a 8:45 appointment with Dr. Kim to check out this hardness that a few of us had been feeling on her stomach. The occupational therapist had also noticed it and encouraged us to get it checked out. Dr. Kim checked her out and decided to admit us to Plano Presby for a CT Scan. After some troubles getting Laney to take the contrast (they finally just gave it to her through an NG tube), the scan was complete. Thankfully Paul and Vickie jumped right in to take care of Bryce at home.

About an hour later Dr. Kim came to our room to tell us that the scan showed a cancerous tumor on Laney's liver. It's called hepatoblastoma and is very rare...only one in a million babies get it. He assured us that the cure rate was very high for this type of cancer. I just cried but told him that I knew Laney was going to be ok. He transferred us to Children's for further testing and treatment. Laney got her first ambulance ride...and so did I.

Tuesday, November 18th

Laney had a CT scan of her abdomen and lungs to see if the cancer had spread. She also had an MRI and MRV (to check placement of the veins for the surgeon). It was a long morning holding her off from eating since they didn't take her until 1:30...but she made it! Lots of family came to the hospital to visit. And poor Granddad...it was his birthday.

At about 6pm we had results. The scans showed that the tumor appeared to be attached to both the left and right lobes of the liver. This would be considered Stage 3 since they would not be able to remove it. The plan was to do 4 rounds of chemo to hopefully shrink it small enough that it would unattach itself from the left side. Then do surgery and 2 more follow up rounds of chemo. If that didn't work then our only other option was a liver transplant.

Wednesday, November 19th

Laney waiting for surgery...

Holding her lovey from Aunt Renee...

Laney went to surgery at 11:00 to insert the port for the chemo and most likely biopsy the tumor. Again, we had so much family support at the hospital...and friends calling and coming by too. That helped us so much...thank you! They called about once an hour from the operating room and there was no news the first hour. They second hour they said the Dr. Meggison was still checking things out but thought he might be able to remove the tumor. It wasn't as attached to the left side as they originally thought. By the fourth call we knew that amazingly he had been able to remove the entire tumor (along with half of the right lobe of the liver, a small portion of the left, the lymph nodes and her gallbladder)!!!! And as a bonus they repaired her belly button hernia. We were so thrilled and thankful for the answer to our prayers. We all did high fives in the waiting room! I still get goose bumps thinking about what a blessing we were given. Dr. Meggison said that the surgery went as well as it possibly could have. Just amazing...

Bryce was not feeling well so Mom and Paul left to take him to the doctor. Turned out that he had strep along with both of his cousins! What a day! They tested Laney right away and thankfully she didn't have. Kevin and I didn't either.

Laney went to ICU that night because she had trouble coming off of the ventilator. They put her back on and she spent the next few days there recovering. Through all of this our parents took care of Bryce (and so much more), we had many visitors, tons of calls/emails/people praying for us, etc. We couldn't have made it without all of you...especially our parents that dropped everything to do whatever we needed.

Over the next few days...

Laney was pretty sedated and things were relatively calm. We were moved to a regular room just in time to watch the OU vs. Tech game. On Sunday I got to go home and see Bryce for the first time in a week. It was so fun to see him but also very hard to leave. He was handling all of this really well. By Monday Kevin went back to work, Laney was getting back to normal and had fun visiting with all of the Grandparents. She loves her touch and feel book from Grandmom and Granddad as you can see in these pictures!

The pathology reports came back Monday afternoon with more good news! The margins and the lymph nodes were clear of any cancer which made Laney in Stage 1! Another huge blessing and answer to our prayers. This meant that the chances of her being totally cured were even higher...although it sadly didn't mean that she would have to do any less chemo. They just want to be absolutely sure that they get any left over cells that might be there.

Tuesday, November 25

Unfortunately over night things started not going so well. I'll spare the details but she was spitting up, having some internal bleeding, couldn't sleep, etc. After several people checked her out they decided that the only way to be sure there were no major complications from the surgery was to do surgery again and look. I was glad they were checking it out but so sad that Laney would have to go through that again. After a few hours of surgery they told us that the bleeding had been coming from her esophagus where the NG tube had attached itself. Other than that everything looked good. Laney was given a blood transfusion and came back to the regular room. We were so happy that she didn't have to go back to ICU.

Wednesday, November 26

Laney was recovering well so I went home to stay with Bryce that night. Kevin stayed with Laney and she kept him up all night pulling her NG tube out. Every time she did it they had to call the XRay people to make sure it was going back in the right place!

Thursday, November 27- Thanksgiving

Vickie was so sweet and made tons of yummy food for us! Her and George brought it to the hospital and my Mom and Bryce came too. Laney was having a good day and Bryce had a ball. Here they are seeing each other for the first time. They were so cute talking to each other.

Bryce was entertaining us in the exersaucer and making sure that we were all looking when he did anything funny.

Since then...

Laney got her NG tube out and was taken off oxygen. She's done great! She doesn't sleep well at the hospital and had only been taking about 30 minutes of a nap all day. She does better at night. She was able to start eating again on Sunday after 11 days...poor girl! She did well and didn't spit up once. As she was able to eat more over the next few days she started acting so happy! She was laughing and smiling every time you looked at her. She had a few more tests on Monday before she could start her chemotherapy.

After her first bath...finally getting to wear pj's!

With lovey again!

We wouldn't have made it without Grandmom & Granddad's travel swing.

Tuesday, December 2

Laney was so happy and making tons of friends around here! Nurses come in just to hold her. They don't get many babies. Around 2:30pm they were ready to start chemo. She was hydrated all day and give anti-nausea medication before we started. It ran over 4 hours through her IV port. It's been close to 24 hours now and so far no major side effects!!! We've had to give her some extra medication as it looked like she was not feeling well but we've controlled it so far. This last feeding she only ate 1/2 once but they said that they'll supplement with nutrition through her IV so she'll be ok. We may have to do that at home too if her appetite doesn't come back. It doesn't seem like a big deal in the scheme of things though. She's been smiling and playing at times so she doesn't always feel bad so far!

We appreciate everyone checking in on her, praying for her and just supporting us in general. It helps more than I can say...thank you!!!!

Laney with Grandma right before she started her chemo.