Hello all. Here is my mass update with as much as we know as of today. To start from the beginning….for a few months now Madeline has been complaining of belly pain. About a month ago we thought it was constipation but after working on that the pain persisted. Last week Thursday she had symptoms of a UTI so we went to urgent care where they tested her urine and it showed a whole bunch of things in it that are not supposed to be there. We were prescribed antibiotics for a UTI. Fast forward to this Thursday and we are at a follow up appointment with primary care and her urine still looks yucky. So… we schedule a kidney ultrasound which was yesterday (Friday). On ultrasound a golf ball size mass was seen that is suspicious of a type of childhood cancer. We were sent to Childrens in Milwaukee last night where some more blood work and a CT scan were performed. The scan showed the tumor and some small nodules on her lungs. 

Now we are working with surgery, urology, and oncology to form a treatment plan. We are in a bit of a holding pattern at the moment but it sounds like Monday will be a busy day. She will get an echo to look at her heart, a study to look at her kidney function, and based on results the team will decide to proceed with surgery then chemo and radiation first or chemo and radiation and then surgery. 

Our prayer for right now….

1. That we continue to trust Jesus in this whole process. We know he loves us and none of this has become part of our story without it first passing through His hands. All that to say it is still hard and none of us want to be doing this. SO when it is hard and we are mad and sad, pray that we don’t doubt God and instead lean into the fact that we know He’s got this and He’s got Madeline.

2. For good kidney function of her unaffected kidney so that if they need to remove her entire tumor kidney she is still functional and strong with the one that remains.

3. Finally, we are pounding the doors of heaven praying for complete healing and destruction of this cancer. We want it GONE. So that is exactly what we are asking God for and we know without a doubt that if it is in His will it will indeed be done.

4. Pray for David and myself and our other girls. This is hard on all of us and it is even harder to be split up. It’s not the way it is supposed to be. So pray that we can be here for ALL three of our sweet girls.

Thank you for being are prayer warriors. We know we are not in this alone. I will keep you updated as I can. We will know more by Monday night.