^i^ Tyler W.
New York
June 1, 2015 - March 8, 2020
Diagnosis: Neuroblastoma
Theme: Cute Jungle Animals
(No cartoons)
Due Date: August 1, 2019
Tyler's Story
On Monday, February 18, 2019 Tyler was complaining of a horrible belly ache. Being a mom I thought maybe it was appendicitis. I took him to our local Emergency Room. It was there they told me my three-year-old son had a mass on his liver about the size of a grapefruit. He was sent by ambulance to the local children's hospital about 40 miles from home.
Four days and several tests and scans later, the doctor and oncologist informed my husband and I that our son had a cancerous tumor on his adrenal gland above his kidney. What they had originally thought was a mass on his liver was in fact not on his liver. It was a narrow blastoma of the undifferentiated type on his kidney. We were told it was malignant and they needed to do more blood work and testing to see if the cancer had spread.
On March 1st we received the good news that the cancer had not spread anywhere internally. They did one more test to see if it was in his bone marrow. If the cancer was present there, Tyler would have been considered high risk and have to go through extensive chemo and radiation treatment before surgery to remove the tumor. Fortunately that wasn't the case.
Tyler's cancer went from what they thought was aggressive to non-aggressive. Also there was a lot of dead tissue ... meaning the cancer had already started to kill itself without treatment. The doctors said it appeared to have lost its blood supply. If the tumor was smaller he wouldn't have even needed chemo. They could have just taken it out. Rather than a lengthy 6 months to a year of treatment that was expected, recent test results have shown it is now expected to be more like 6 to 8 weeks.
Tyler had surgery on March 4th to place his port. Chemo has begun!
"Tyler's quilt came today. I cannot even begin to express how much I really, truly love this gift. Tyler is super stoked about it as well. Thank you so much for making this happen for him."
