Isaac does have a 2 inch cystic type mass in his lower right lung. Two inches doesn't sound very big until you see it on his small child-size lungs. The mass is pushing against the diaphragm and causing Isaac a lot of pain. Right now, we do know it's not cancer. There are a couple of different possibilities it could be, but we won't know for sure until after the biopsy. One problem the surgeons came up against is that they can't tell if there's an infection inside the mass or not. So Isaac is home for the next few weeks taking some very powerful antibiotics and pain meds. He needs to be on antibiotics for at least two weeks to knock out any possible infection before the surgery. We have another appointment in January with the surgeon to set the surgery date. It will be towards mid-January.
As for the colon, they think the thickening of the walls is from when he had the flu a few weeks ago. They said it can take a while for the colon to return to normal.
Isaac is actually doing pretty well as long as he's nicely medicated. I'm happy that so far, the meds he's taken have not made him loopy or drowsy, but comfortable enough to be himself. When the meds start wearing off, you can really tell though because he wants to sit with me and run his hands through my hair to comfort himself. He has been able to tell me when he needs more pain meds and when he's feeling okay.
Are you ready for a photo tour of our time at Children's Mercy?
The day after Isaac was admitted, Tony Gonzalez of the KC Chiefs and David Cook from American Idol came to Children's Mercy to pass out Shadow Buddies. Even though Isaac had no clue who they were, he thought it was fun to meet them and receive his doll.
While we were getting pictures taken, Isaac started doing all these funky Star Wars poses. Tony Gonzalez actually got right down with Isaac and copied his poses with him. I have some of the pictures, but they turned out really silly and not a really good shot of the two of them posing together. But it was fun!
Isaac absolutely loved it when Mr. Todd came to visit. Mr. Todd is one of Isaac's autism specialists at school. He was Isaac's first visitor during his stay. Of course, he was excited Mr. Todd brought him a new Bionicle, too. Thank you, Mr. Todd!
Isaac's next visitor was Miss Jill, who is Isaac's other autism specialist at school. She works with Isaac in the afternoons, while Mr. Todd works with him in the mornings. Isaac just loves Miss Jill. Can you tell?
The food was actually really good while we were there. The coolest part was that they had a whole Milk-Free menu they sent up just for Isaac. He got to order anything he wanted from the menu each day.
Our friends, Shelley and Kelly, brought us more clothes from our house . . . and also brought MJ & Rob to visit, too. Isaac was happy to see them!
Us being goofy with Shelley and Kelly. Poor Rob got his head cut off. It's a good thing we were already at the hospital, eh? :) That evening, Miss Bobbi (Isaac's first para when we moved to KS) came to visit him, too. She brought him some fun balloons. I thought we took pictures of them together, but I couldn't find them on my camera. They must be lost somewhere with all the pictures from Isaac's class party. I can't find them either. Hmm . . .As you can see, we did our best to keep Isaac happy between all the yucky blood tests and poking and prodding. When we were in the car to go home, I asked Isaac if he thought staying in the hospital had been okay. He looked at me funny and said, "Mom, hospitals are bad, yucky places."
And I said, "But Isaac, that's where we've been for the last three days. You've been in the hospital so the doctors and nurses could help you."
He replied, "Oh! I didn't know that."
So, I guess we did a pretty good job at keeping him happy. :) A huge thank you to everyone who came to see him. Also, thank you for all of your prayers, emails, and phone calls. We appreciate all of your friendship and love. We'd like to ask that you keep praying for Isaac that he'll continue to do well with his pain meds as he completes his rounds with the antibiotics. I will keep you updated and let you know when he'll have his surgery. We hope you'll all have a wonderful Christmas with your families!
