WE HAVE A PLAN!!! And it feels so good.

Madeline’s oncologist and surgeon called us together about an hour ago. In the past 24 hours they have consulted with not only doctors across the country but around the world. We are going to adopt the European approach to treating this Wilm’s tumor. (Although this may be sound surprising to all of you our doctors have mentioned that this is an option from the very beginning.) Essentially, what this means is that we will be treating Madeline with chemotherapy and THEN performing surgery. Followed again by more chemo.

So. Here is the plan.

On Monday morning David, Madeline, and I will go to Children’s in Milwaukee. She will have a port placed, receive her first dose of chemotherapy, and they are going to biopsy her tumor to know exactly what we are treating. She will continue to receive once weekly chemo for 6 weeks. They will then perform the surgery with the goal of having shrunk the tumor so that they can salvage as much good kidney tissue as possible. 

During surgery they will be able to see if the tumor has indeed ruptured which will determine the need for radiation or not. From our understanding if the tumor is intact she will not need abdominal radiation and only chemotherapy. If the tumor has ruptured as suspected, she will need abdominal radiation in addition to her chemotherapy. 

At the six week mark they will also reevaluate the status of the nodules that are in her lungs. We are going to pray HARD that these disappear completely with chemotherapy. If they do not she may need radiation to her lungs as well. We don’t want that. So, we are all going to pray away the need for radiation.

All in all our doctor is thinking she will have about 28-30 weeks of chemotherapy starting on Monday. This will likely bring us to the end of November. This will be a long haul, but WE CAN DO IT. The only way out of this is through it and we are going to go through. This is bigger than just our family and we are not fighting it by ourselves. God has a plan for this girl and we firmly believe that this is not the end. 

Thank you for being our prayer warriors. Thank you for being our army. As always, we love you all.