On Monday, November 9th after my family had left and I dropped Judy off at the airport, I came home and was getting Brody ready for his nap when I noticed a lump on his abdomen. I put him down for his nap and immediately called the doctor. They were able to squeeze us in that day. The doctor took a look and had no idea what it was. She decided to order an ultra sound to get a better look. So on Tuesday we got up and took Brody to get his ultra sound. They ruled out a hernia but were also kind of stumped as to what it could be. The doctor called as we were leaving and asked if we could come in again. She took another look and even had another doctor look at it. They were both stumped. They decided to schedule a more advanced ultra sound at the Dell Children's Medical Center for Friday. On Wednesday we woke up and the lump was bigger and for the first time seemed to be bothering Brody. He was hunched over and limping a little. We called our doctor and she asked us to go ahead and head to the Dell Center and to the emergency room. After the emergency room visit the doctors were all still stumped. They decided to admit us to the hospital to run some tests and try to figure it out. They started an IV and took some blood and then there was a lot of waiting. They finally moved us to our own room and we were able to get somewhat settled. We had several more doctors and nurses come in and out to take a look. No one had any ideas. They scheduled a MRI for the morning and hoped that would give them some answers. We had a very restless night in the hospital. In the morning we were visited by a team of about 10 doctors, including a few from the surgical team. The head of surgery was among the doctors. He took one look and had a pretty good idea of what it was. He canceled the MRI and ordered a more advanced ultra sound. He wanted to give that a chance before having to put Brody under for the MRI. After the ultra sound they were able to conclude that he has a veno lymphatic malformation. He said it was basically a malformation that Brody probably has had since birth and that he probably hit it in some way and it had started to bleed and that's why it had suddenly started to get bigger. The good news is it was nothing life threatening like cancer, the bad news was he has to have surgery. As of now Brody is scheduled for surgery next Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. The good thing is we didn't have plans to go anywhere and Mark will have four days off to stay home and help me nurse him back to health. We'll keep everyone posted with how it all turns out.
This was the lump on Monday 11/9.
Brody looking very concerned in the hospital.
His IV, poor thing. 
After they put in the IV and took blood, he was exhausted and fell asleep on mommy. 
He was so cute in his hospital gown and his tube socks.
This was the lump as of Saturday night, it's gotten a little bigger since then but has definitely slowed down.
1 comment:
That concerned look really gets me; I look at these photos everyday and just hope that the surgery is quick and Brody is not traumatized. Mark had surgery at 18 months and did great--it is very hard on the parents!
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