Background Info

If you are reading this blog you have probably heard that Emily is very sick. She has been diagnosed with T Cell Lymphoma. I will explain more about that in a bit but first let me explain how we found this and what's been happening the past few days.

Emily had an ear infection last week, but we noticed that her fever was not going away. On Sunday I decided to take Emily into urgent care because she was starting to have trouble breathing. We got to the appointment and the Dr. thought it would be a good idea to have a chest X-Ray. I was standing by the X ray tech, and he almost shot out of his seat when he saw Emily's film. He rushed us back to the Dr. The Dr. told me that Emily had a completely collapsed lung and they couldn't understand how she was even up and walking around. They were so worried that she would slip at anytime that they called an Ambulance to take Emily from Palo Alto Clinic to the ER at Stanford Hospital. For those who don't know Palo Alto clinic is less than a mile from the hospital and they were worried that if I drove her she was going to slip then. This was a "code 3" meaning the sirens were on and everything. I also had Haley with me, so I could not ride in the Ambulance, Emily had to go alone. Luckily Tracy was at the hospital for work, so she was able to be there waiting for Emily to arrive.

So at this point we are thinking this is bad, she has a collapsed lung. But unfortunately our nightmare hadn't even begun.

They did several more X rays and exam-ed. Then they told us that whatever was in the lung was not "layering". When you have fluid in your lungs and you lay on your side you would see the liquid layer on the bottom due to gravity. So at this point the Dr.'s knew this wasn't liquid, it was probably a mass. At this point Tracy and I knew that we were dealing with something extremely urgent. They brought Emily in for a CAT scan. The result of the CAT scan was a mass around the size of a apple in her medial stinal cavity. The Medial stinal cavity is your chest, where the heart, lungs and thymus gland live.

Then we were told that the Dr.'s agreed that Emily needed to be admitted to the Pediatric Oncology Ward, and they handed us a box of Kleenex because as you can image we were totally devastated that our little angel probably had Cancer. She definitely had a mass in her chest.

The next 48 hour were extremely difficult. Emily needed surgery immediately to drain her chest, have a sinal tap, and get some bone marrow and a piece of bone. The real tricky art was since the mass had dislodged her trachea she could not be put under anesthesia for these very very painful procedures. She also got a chest tube. To put a chest tube in the put a hose in between on of her ribs and it goes into the medial stinal cavity. She drained out 1400 militers of fluid from that cavity. To give you a visual, that's about a bottle and a half of wine. Emily cavity is REALY small. So her right lung was completely crushed and non functioning. Her heart rate was up around 155 for 2 days in a row, she was breathing very rapidly. It was just scary and horrible for everyone. And we still didn't even know what she had.

The next day, Tuesday March 11th, all the tests were done and a team of oncologists had a diagnosis and had a meeting with Tracy and I. There were two doctors, a social worker, and boxes of Kleenex present. I was prepared for bad news.

They told us Emily had T Cell Lymphoma. This was really difficult news to get. They explained to us that T Cell Lymphoma is treated just the same was they treat Leukemia. The two diseases are very closely related, Leukemia originates in the marrow and T Cell Lymphoma originates in the Lymph nodes. In fact they treat Lymphoma because it can move into the marrow and become leukemia.

We were told the current survival rate for Pediatric T Cell Lymphoma is %75. I don't know how you take those odds, but when you have a kid with cancer, that's a good number, there is a lot to hope for. We have an exellent team of Oncologists on the case.

WE had to listen to the two years of treatment in a lot of detail so we could sign consent to begin treatment.

Yesterday March 12, Emily started her 2 years of Chemotherapy. It started off with a Lumbar Puncture to inject her spine with medicine. Luckily by now she could be put under for that procedure. One she will be having once a week for a long time. 5 other drugs were administered as well to start the fight. The FIGHT IS ON.

When they exam ed her heart they observed a fluid build up around it, and we're watching that closely as well, but things seem to be progressing well. Her heart rate has returned to a normal rate for a 6 year old, her fever broke, and she was being feisty. It was nice to see.

One of the odd side effects of her medication is she has pink tears, so if you visit and see them, don't fret its expected.

Emily has a play therapist assigned to her, who plays with her, and arranges other fun things. For example yesterday Theater Works from Mountain View came around with a puppet show in her room, and today she got a visit by a dog. When she gets her chest tube out there is a play room upstairs that is very nice. All the child cancer, and cardiac, and transplant patients play and go to school up there. Emily could be in the hospital this stay as long as 5 week so it is nice that there is a lot for her to do here.