Blessings for Braden

Welcome to our blog! Braden is a 2 year old little boy who has been diagnosed with Neuroblastoma. Nueroblastoma is a childhood cancer that is most often found in children under the age of 10. Our hope is that God will heal Braden completely and that his story will help others draw closer to Jesus.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Jessica's Facebook Post 8-11

Brandon I have a lot of huge decissions to make since meeting with the oncologist on Thursday this week. We also met with the surgeon. The surgeon wants to go ahead and remove the lymphnode in Braden's neck, however this does not come without risks. Because the tumor is embeded behind the collar bone...
, it leads to nerves that are attached to Braden's arm. This could lead to nerve damage. There is also the risk of uncontrolled bleeding. Neuroblastoma is one of those tumors that can bleed really easily and it can be hard to stop. When we met with the oncologist, he said that we have two options to chose from. Either do 6 rounds of intense chemotherapy which would lead to stem cell transplant, more blood transfussions, more platlet transfussions and a very sick litte boy. He also said that he has lost patients due to the high doses of toxicity that it causes in your body. The other option we have is the wait and see what happens. We would follow up with scans every 3 months. The risk with this is that we are not sure if the cancer will spread somewhere else and if it went to his brain or lungs it would probably not be treatable. The other factor that we have to take into account is that, the oncologist is not certain the intense chemo will shrink the tumor. Becuase Braden's tumor is so mature, it may be hard to shrink. We have a CT scan on Monday and we are hoping that this will give us some answers to help us make our decission. Our hope is that the tumor has shrunk on its own! We continue to pray the God will give us an answer Loud and Clear so that we know which path to take.
We also found out that St. Jude does not accept patients who have already had treatment elsewhere. They do however give advise to doctors ,after looking over Braden's scans and records, St. Jude advises to do intense chemo along with CHOP and New York.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Jessica's Facebook Post Today

I found out the decision of St. Jude yesterday, they say intense chemo just like Philadelphia and NewYork. Braden's oncologist here at Scottishrite is still on the fence about treating B that way because B does not act like a stage four cancer patient. He had tons of energy and acts like a normal two year old:) with intense chemo comes stem cell transplants, and antibody therapy and a lot of sickness!!! We will talk further tomorrow when we meet with the surgeon at Scottishrite. Our doctor has also suggested that we take B to CHOP in philadelphia to see Dr. Mossei so that she can see him in person. She is the doc. That sets the protocols for kids with neuroblastoma. Lots of prayers needed that we make the right decision for Braden. I feel so much pressure that I'm not going to make the right decision. Why can't the doctors agree?? It would make things so much easier, but I am glad that our doctor is not rushing into things. He wants to do what is right for B, not just what it looks like on paper. We will be having a CT soon, hopefully next week to see what has happened during this waiting period. This should also give us some answers. If nothing has changed then this might tell us that we don't need intense Chemo and can just watch it. Please continue to pray with us'