Leading up to Diagnosis Day

On October 11th, Jake was playing outside with another boy in the neighborhood.  That boy rode his bike directly into Jake, knocking him over in the street.  He scraped up his face and elbow, luckily not knocking out a tooth in the process.

Saturday, October 13th, he hit his shin on a chair and screamed in agonizing pain.  Much more than you would normally cry over a little bump.  After talking to Dan about, we agreed that it could possibly be a hairline fracture from the bike accident and that it should be x-rayed.

Monday, October 15th, I took him to the pediatrician on Monday morning and she also thought it looked like a hairline fracture.  She ordered an x-ray to be done STAT.  Meanwhile, Ethan's school called saying that he didn't feel well and I needed to come get him.  I swung by the school to get Ethan and then went on to the hospital.  The results were given to the pediatrician within an hour.  She was concerned that he may have an infection and wanted us to bring him to the emergency room at Egleston Children's Hospital right away.   I packed the kids up and headed to Atlanta.  It was the busiest night that the ER had seen in a long time (unfortunately) and we waited 4 hours to see a Doctor, had blood work, and then saw an orthopedic doctor.  I took the Ethan and Aubrey home while Randy stayed with Jake until very early in the morning when they were released.  Basically, the doctors had no idea what the mass on his leg was.  They referred us to a specialist with a very scary title: orthopedic oncologist with a specialty in rare tumors.

Tuesday, October 16th, we received a call from Jake's pediatrician saying that the radiologist read the x-ray that morning and believes that Jake has Ewing Sarcoma.

Wednesday, October 17th, he had his appointment with Dr. Oskouei  (the specialist) who said that he doesn't know what the mass is and therefore needs Jake to have an MRI to find out what kind of tissue it is.  The MRI was scheduled for October 31st.

Wednesday, October 31st, we went for the MRI at Egleston and Jake was such a trooper.  The nurses all said he is a very mature 3 year old.  The only time he cried was when they wanted to remove a band-aid.  He was too busy playing with an Ipad to notice them putting in an IV.  He was sedated and the test took about an hour. 

Friday, November 2nd, I received a call from Dr Oskouei's assistant saying that the results were back from the MRI and that they think it is Ewing's Sarcoma.  She asked us to come in right away to see the doctor and discuss what to do next.  I went straight to the office and Jake was seen very quickly.  Dr. Oskouei said that he still doesn't know what the tumor is and that we need to do a biopsy next.  He strongly believes that this is osteomyelitis (bone infection) rather than the cancer because of Jake's age and because the tumor is very painful.  The biopsy is scheduled for 7:30am arrival time at Egleston on Monday, November 5th.  We will receive a preliminary diagnosis the same day, but will have to wait 3-5 days for a firm diagnosis.    So far this has been a roller coaster.  It's cancer, it's not cancer...it's cancer, it's not cancer...Ahhhhhhhhh!!!  We have decided to try not worry and just wait until we have a confirmed diagnosis.  This back and forth is really stressful and exhausting!  In the meantime we are praying.