The longest week of our Lifes!

Well, in my last post I mentioned that my daughter Caitlin was getting an MRI done since she wasn't walking. Well instead of Monday that changed her appointment to Thursday, so at 5:30 am we went up to the hospital. Caitlin did really well throughout the whole thing, they said that they had to give her a little bit more sleepy medicine since she was singing. After that we went back home to get Jake to bed and wait for the results from Dr. Armstrong. I didn't want to stress myself out, so I just kept telling myself that there wasn't something major wrong. At about 10:15 Dr. Armstrong called me, and says I have some bad news, and my heart fell. The MRI showed that Caitlin had a brain tumor and it was causing pressure on the brain. He said he would call Primary Children's and get us an appointment as soon as possible. Not a half hour later someone from Primary Children's called and told us to pack for about a week and get down there as soon as possible. I think we were ready to leave in 15 minutes. I drove as fast as I could, I wasn't worried about a speeding ticket. Both my parents and Jake's weren't very far behind us. When we got there we were soon took in, Dr. Brockmeyer decided that we should take care of this as soon as possible, so we were taken to the Pediatric ICU, to prep her for surgery. Caitlin was not happy about any of it. I don't blame her. Before she left for surgery Jake's Dad and my dad gave Caitlin a priesthood blessing. At 6:00 they took her to surgery, Jake and I walked down with her, it was so hard to hand her over to the nurses, but we need that they were going to take good care of her. After we walked out the ER doors, Jake and I hugged and broke down crying. We were not prepared for this, but what parent is. At about 11pm surgery was done, everything went really well, and they were able to remove all the of tumor and put in a EVD( a tube that helps drain the extra fluid on the brain). We were all able to see her at about 1 in the morning in the PICU. I was worried about what she would look like, but she looked pretty good I thought for what she just went through. On Monday she was well enough that they moved her to the neuroscience trauma unit, which was nice since in the PICU only two people can be by the bedside at a time. My mom, Jake's mom and I took turns spending the night at hospital with Caitlin. On Tuesday we unfortunately got another drop in the bucket, the test on the tumor came back as a medulloblastoma tumor which is a Grade 4 type of cancer. So even though they were able to removed all of the tumor, we will still after to go through chemotherapy. On Wednesday they removed the EVD, which was nice. We were suppose to then come home on Friday but we noticed leaking of spinal fluid from the EVD site, so they had us get her a CT scan and added two more stitches, and we had to stay for another 24 hours, which kind of suck. But this morning we were able to come home which was nice and nerve wrecking all in one. Since I am now that one responsible for making sure everything is alright. Sorry this is so long but since I have been at Primary Childrens for eight days I have been unable to update my blog. Please keep our little angel in your prayers. We still have a long road ahead of us. Also more info to come since I am sure I have forgotten a lot.