Monday, November 20, 2006

September 6, 2006 - Diagnosis



For those new to our journey, I am recapping the events to date:




  • Sept 6 - We started noticing Lillian's balance was off. She would stumble and say "whoa" after standing up.

  • Sept 18 - Lillian started throwing up each morning and her balance was slowly deteriorating.

  • Sept 28 - Lillian's pediatrician diagnosed her condition as acid reflux and prescribed pepcid (which she HATED and didn't help because, well, antacids don't work on tumors. Hindsight...)

  • Oct 3 - We took Lillian back to the pediatrician. Her balance deteriorated to the point where she could no longer stand without help. This time, we wrote down the history of symptoms and handed them to the nurse. The doctor walked in a few minutes later saying he hadn't understood the balance issue and we need to get a MRI to check out her brain.

  • Oct 7 - We checked in for the MRI at OHSU at 8am. Lillian vomited every time we stood up or sat down making for a messy journey throughout the hospital. We were unnerved to see our little girl looking so lifeless after receiving the anesthetic. Expecting a one hour wait, we anxiously sat in the tiny (5x10) waiting room. About 15-minutes into the procedure, our world was forever changed as the doctor told us that they have found a tumor in Lillian's brain. (I am still shocked that they gave us this news in front of the room full of waiting patients and family. Still I am grateful that they didn't make us wait the full hour.) Pathology later confirmed that the tumor was a medulablastoma.


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