Hello!

As of yesterday afternoon we are home and together again. Madeline's port placement and tumor biopsy went as well as it could have. Now we are just focusing on pain control, recovery, and symptom management from the chemo that she received on Monday night.

She is having some pain from her new port and is definitely exhausted and telling us "she feels really yucky." We are being gentle with her. She is napping and playing play dough in the sunshine and riding in the stroller on our family walks. It is such a blessing to be able to come home to beautiful weather and enjoy this fresh air. We are confident that she will continue to improve each day and we are excited to watch her spunkiness and zest for life slowly return.

Kaitlyn and Lilah are wonderful sisters. Kaitlyn is incredibly emotionally intelligent and has been so good at recognizing that Madeline is having a tough time. We have read books about cancer, ports, and hair loss and God has given us the opportunity to have really good conversations. This is uncharted territory for all of us so we are praying for the right words, opportunities to talk, and strength and resilience for our whole family.

Here is some good news! Before we left Children's on Tuesday afternoon our Oncologist came rushing into our room and announced, "I have good news!" He then proceeded to tell us that the preliminary results of Madeline's biopsy pointed towards "favorable histology Wilm's tumor." This is still cancer but is the best pathology report we could have gotten. It brought tears to the eyes of both David and myself. When an oncologist gets excited we know it is good news so we are going to celebrate that! Lord knows we needed some positivity for the first time in over a week.

We also set a surgery date. Madeline's tumor removal is scheduled to take place on June 10th. From now through May 25th we will continue chemotherapy every Monday. We will be praying for her tumor on her kidney to shrink so the surgeons can keep as much good kidney tissue as possible and that the chemo eliminates the nodules in her lungs. 

As always, we love you all. Thank you for walking through the highs and lows of this journey with us. We couldn't do it without each and every one of you.