Primary Children's Hospital

We had an appointment today at Primary Children's Hospital. We met with two doctors - Dr. Kevin Jones (who is one of only 2 doctors in the whole mountain west that specializes in sarcoma's) and Dr. Holly Spraiker (from the oncology department). They were incredible - I am so grateful to have them as the ones taking care of Paige. I don't have a lot to report - we didn't learn much new, but the peace that I have felt has only continued to grow. They didn't have the pathology report, so they just asked us questions about what procedures have been taken with Paige. They checked her for other masses - and didn't find any. Here are a few of the things that we were told:
- Sarcoma's are EXTREMELY rare in someone as young as Paige - but they were encouraging because they are usually not as invasive in the younger patients as well.
- We won't need to come back for a couple of weeks (darn - that means I have to continue to study for the exit exam) - they will call me when their pathologist looks at the slide and make an appointment and clarify what we are going to need to do.
- Most likely - this will be the plan of action. First - we need to have additional tests done - the first will be a MRI of the area where they removed the tumor. Depending on what they find (how far the "bad cells" go) - there are a few more tests that they will need to run. The two places that the cancer would spread to would be to the bones and the lungs, so they might need to run a test on her bones and a chest (CT) scan to check her lungs. These tests would all be done on one day and the next day they would do another surgery to take out more tissue surrounding where the tumor was.
- They were very positive about everything and seemed to think that they could get everything without chemotherapy or radiation. But they haven't seen the labs yet - so I will keep you updated as we hear more.
I am so grateful we came up today - we don't have a lot more answers - but we have GREAT doctors and I am able to plan for the next couple of weeks again. Thanks everyone for the prayers - we will let you know when we have something new to report.
Paige and Piper (well Piper was actually a bit scared of the horse - so maybe just Paige) loved the bright horse in front of the hospital. We needed Abby there to translate exactly what Paige was saying to the horse (usually Paige tells Abby that she would like a marshmellow - I never hear it, but Abby swears that is what she wants - and she wants Abby to have a marshmellow too) - but whatever it was she was very excited about it.