Childhood Cancer Part 1

One year ago today my life as a parent changed forever. It was the first time the C word, cancer was spoken in reference to my child. It is a moment that I will never forget. We had known that Kinley had a cleft lip since I was 20 weeks pregnant. At Kinley’s 1 month appointment her pediatrician decided to send her for an ultrasound of her kidneys. I guess some babies who have cleft lips have underdeveloped kidneys. I remember at the appointment her pediatrician saying that even though Kinley was having plenty of wet diapers and didn’t have any symptoms that she wanted to send us for an abdominal ultrasound anyways. When I asked her about it a few weeks later she said that she didn’t know why she felt the need to send us but she did and it was one of those things in her career that cannot be explained. I am forever grateful to her for sending us. If she hadn’t, who knows how long it would have been before the Cancer was found and how far it would have spread. 

That afternoon sitting in the ultrasound room I knew something was wrong. The ultrasound tech was taking a long time on the left side of her tummy. She checked the right side and came back to the left. Then she went to go get a doctor. My heart sank. I turned to John and told him that they must have found something. He said it was probably routine but I knew it was something more. The doctor came in and told us that they found a mass on her left adrenal gland above her kidney. I was in shock. They told me they were going to send the images to the pediatric surgeon to review. 

That afternoon I got a call from the pediatric surgeon saying that they would want to remove the mass in case it was cancerous. Yes, the doctor said cancerous. That had me speechless. He said that it looked to be a neuroblastoma. I made the mistake of googling that word. The statistics are pretty scary. The doctor did reassure me that the mass was most likely not cancerous. looking back, i’m sure he said that just to put my mind at ease.

Later that evening Kinley’s pediatrician called me from her cell phone. She wanted to make sure I had spoken to the surgeon and knew what was going on. She asked me if I had any questions and told me to call her if I needed to. Her pediatrician went above and beyond what doctors have to do for their patients.

That night I held her tight. My little princess had a mass inside of her that didn’t belong and they were going to take it out. My 5 week old daughter needed surgery.