Warming up....(from Elijah's exam)

At times, it can get so cold that you start to lose feeling in your fingers and toes.  There can be a similar feeling sometimes, when you're sitting in a doctor's office making decisions about cancer treatment.

Not that you lose feeling altogether-but for a moment, you're not quite as sensitive.  You have to be rational and think about things like numbers and percentages.  You have to weigh options and consider outcomes.  You have to take in lots of information, and then cry out to God for wisdom to make the right decisions.

Today, we sat in the doctor's office and learned that this tumor in Elijah's central field of vision is strong and stubborn. It has survived the first chemo treatment, as well as laser treatments including those with the dye.  It is not a large tumor. In fact, they would not normally use intra-arterial chemo to treat it. They would normally blast this tumor to its death with laser treatment.  Except in cases like Elijah's.  This tumor is within approximately 50 cells of his central field of vision.  Meaning, it's like a dot on a paper away from growing into his central field of vision.  If that were to happen, he would lose vision that he could never regain.

    Unfortunately, treating with laser-while helping to keep this tumor from growing as rapidly as it probably would, is not gaining us the ground we need.

    Elijah was supposed to have intra-arterial chemo tomorrow.  Our insurance did not approve the procedure in time for him to be scheduled tomorrow.  We are expecting him to be scheduled for Thursday (as long as insurance approves in time), which would delay our return home a few days.

So, we wait.

The RMH was all out of cribs, which made for a rough night last night. Especially given the delay, we went ahead and bought a pack and play so that hopefully Elijah will be able to sleep some in the next few days. :)

I'm really glad Ben was able to be here with me as we had to make some decisions. I feel like we were united and both heard the same things and felt the next step to be pretty clear.

We don't know yet if Ben will return as planned, or stay with me through Elijah's treatment.

But now that the decision making on his treatment is over, we can begin to "feel" and process it all as we move forward in the days to come.

Thank you for praying!

We stopped at a beautiful cathedral, which was so good for my soul today:

And the park, while sort of cold and windy, is absolutely gorgeous in the spring: