Drew's Story - 11/20/06

I am not sure where to even begin telling this story, I think it is the hardest one I will ever have to tell in my life. We wanted to get everyone updated at once and to thank everyone for their support. Here is Drew's story:

Drew appeared to have a lazy eye, something I have noticed since birth. Everyone kept telling us it was just the way baby's eyes look until they develop. My gut instinct said there was something wrong, but I tried to ignore it. About a month ago Drew was sick and the eye looked really bad. When we took him to urgent care, I mentioned it to the doctor. He thought it was a lazy eye and referred us to an eye specialist. Last week we went for Drew's 9 month appointment and our pediatrician thought the eye was just weak. He said Drew would probably need glasses, but he would let the eye specialist diagnosis it. Friday we saw one of the best eye specialists in the mid-west. They did several tests, and at first they thought Drew had no vision in his left eye. They did some further testing and found two large size tumors in his left eye. They are sitting back by the retina and right in his 20/20 vision. This is why it appeared he had a lazy eye. Drew at the little age of 9 months, learned to compensate for it and look around the tumor. The doctor indicated he is 90% sure it is cancerous. Cancer, what a scary word for someone so little. Tony and I were disbelief. How could this little boy who appeared healthy have cancer. We are scared for him and our entire family. They referred us to an eye specialist at Children's - U of M. Over the course of the next few days we have spoke with many doctors, all of which have been great. Every doctor was so caring, taking time out of their weekend to check on us and make sure we were doing ok. We have many questions and only some answers. Here is what we know:

This type of cancer is usually hereditary and a one in 16,000 chance it could appear. The doctors will do genetic testing on Tony and I. Jack will be tested immediately.

Usually when it is detected this young it is bilateral. If this is the case our treatment option is chemo. Can you believe it, chemo on a nine month old baby. He would have to have 6 rounds of chemo over six months. In addition, they would treat it with chryo therapy (freezing the tumors).

If the cancer is only in one eye, we have a huge decision to make by Tuesday. Do we remove the eye or opt to treat it with chemo. This is probably the hardest decision we will ever make as parents. If we remove the eye, the cancer will be gone but there is a higher risk it will show up in the other eye. This would result in chemo, laser treatment and could potentially leave him blind. If we chose chemo there is a risk of leukemia later is life. We don't know the percentages on any of this, but will in the next couple of days.

Today we will meet with our pediatrician for a pre-operation visit. He is wonderful and we have faith he will help us prepare for this situation. He took time this weekend to call and check on us, after the eye doctor called to inform him of his findings. You can't imagine what this meant to us. We will also meet with Dr. Olson, the eye surgeon. He was kind enough to take some time this weekend to talk through our options. He will do an ultrasound to determine if there is any calcium build up in Drew's good eye. This would be a sign of cancer.

Tomorrow we will meet with a cancer specialist. He will walk us through the treatment option, all the risks and benefits. Drew will be put under and they will do a cat scan and a spinal tap. The cat scan will confirm the cancer and the spinal tap will tell us if the cancer has spread. The doctors are really positive it has not traveled. Usually eye cancer is restricted to the eye. It is at this point we will have to make the decision on what to do. Dr. Olson has indicated there will be a team of doctors there to support us and help us through the decision process.

Ultimately it Tony and I have to make this decision. I don't know how, but I have faith God and the team of doctors will help us make the right decision. We have talked, cried, been angry and mostly sad over the last couple of days. For those of you who know me, I am not very religious but I do believe God will guide us through this. We have an amazing group of friends and family supporting us along the way. God couldn't have given us a better family and we love them so much. Without their support I don't know how we would have gotten through the last couple of days. We love you Carrie, Dan, Paul, Mark, Holly, Tom, Jake, Brett, Beth, Mike, Joe, Rochelle, Josh, Luke, and our PARENTS.

We will get through this and be a stronger family for it. The good news is Drew will LIVE. There is a 95% success rate and we will be in that number. A year from now this will be a bad memory. No matter what we decide life will not change for Drew. He doesn't know life with vision in the left eye. He is a very happy little boy and it has not impacted his growth so far. I guess the only change will be to he will be even more spoiled. I hate tears and am very determined to keep him happy.

This process has been very hard on Jack. Please keep him in your prayers. He is young and doesn't understand what is going on. He keeps telling us not to cry, and you can tell he is scared. We have tried to explain things to him the best we can. He knows Drew has an ouch in his eye and some doctors will fix it. We love him too, and need to help him through this process.

Many people have asked us what they can do. Our best response is pray and pray hard. Pray he will get through this, pray we will make the right decision and pray for Jack. There is not much else anyone can do right now. We will keep people informed as we know information. Please understand is we are not quick to get back to you. By the end of the day we are emotionally and physically exhausted. We are trying to keep things as normal as possible for the kids' sake. At the end of the day Tony and I just want to sit down with our two amazing boys, hold them and thank God for them.