The Smart People Have Spoken

We brought Tess home from Children's Hospital last night, after 14 hours away from home in the Boston hospital system. Tired, a little overwhelmed, but home. We slept great. Tess is as spunky as ever.

We heard back from the oncologist handling Tessa's treatment. The radiologists, oncologists and surgeons (all the smart people I was referring to) just got out of their meeting and they agree on the next steps for diagnosis. Over the next two weeks, Tessa will be scheduled for an MRI, an MIBG tracer test, and a bone scan - to confirm operability and make sure the mass has not invaded the spinal column or the actual bone of the vertebrae.

Once the results from this test are all in and analyzed, they'll be much better equipped to put together a treatment plan and be in a position to schedule surgery.

We did get word that the surgeon that has taken her as his patient is THE surgeon that all the other surgeons go to when they have questions. The oncologist was so excited that we got him.

Thank you for praying. Both Joanna and I are, remarkably, pretty okay with all this. The initial shock has settled into a pragmatic commitment to do whatever it takes to see this through. We attribute this to your prayers (and to some good defense mechanisms kicking in). But the other thing you can be praying for is our ability to give our full attention to our kids. Jo and I are both a little distracted, and we need to be able to be fully present for our kids - even through... especially through... something like this.