My Mason

My heart has never hurt so much in my life. We have had a hard couple of weeks. Most of you probably have heard that My precious 3 year old little boy has Melanoma. We have been on a fast moving train since we received that news. He has had 2 surgeries. First to remove the Mole, second to go back in to remove the skin and tissue around where the mole was and Nuclear Mapping to find the Sentinel Lymph Node to see if the Melanoma has spread. The news so far hasn't been good. The Melanoma had spread to his lymph.

Since finding that news we have met with a pediatric oncologist at CHOC, and we've been getting all sorts of tests to find out what stage his cancer is in so we know how to treat him. It's been very hard.

Mason is still a typical 3 year old little boy. He doesn't really know what cancer is. He just knows that he's had two surgeries to take off his mole. And he now knows that we call it Melanoma. He really doesn't understand the seriousness of it.

The rest of what is below is more for me. I'm trying to keep track of the history of how this has all gone. Feel free to read so you know how this started and has come to be.

Starting with July 2008. Mason is 2 years, 3 months old. I started to notice that he had a little pink blemish/zit on his cheek. Made a mental not of it, and just decided to watch it for a little while. After a few weeks of it not going away, I decided I should point it out to Mason's Pediatrician at his next appointment. At the next Dr.'s Appointment his pediatrician thought it to be a hemangioma. A very common thing that little kids get. What do they do for those? Watch and wait. They usually grow for a few months or a year and then eventually reabsorbed and go away again. It really didn't get very big for a long time. It was a small pink mark on his cheek and it pretty much stayed the same for a long while.

Around Mason's birthday 3rd in April, I decided to point it out to the pediatrician again. It had gotten a little bit bigger, but nothing major. Again I was told it was a hemangioma and they don't usually remove things like that. They watch and wait. So that's what we did. We watched and we waited. And I continued to bring it up to the Dr. at every single appointment.

Finally in December of 2009, Mason fell and bumped it and it bled and bled. At that point Shane and I decided we didn't care WHAT it was. We wanted to have a second opinion about it and if possible, have it removed ASAP. That leads us to January 20, 2010.

On January 20, Shane and I took Mason in to have what we thought was a hemangioma removed from his left cheek. We sat and we waited and before long he was finally out of surgery. We went back and we hugged him and we held him and scooped him up and took him home. The hemangioma that had been giving him so many problems was gone and we could move on with the next phase of life. We were mostly worried about the small scar he was going to have to bear on his left cheek.

(I took the above pictures in the morning on 1/20/2010, just minutes before Mason went in to surgery to have his mole removed.)

January 28, 2010. A week later I took him back into the Plastic Surgeon's offce to get his bandages removed. (that was a strange story in of itself!) and after waiting for a VERY long time to meet with the surgeon, he comes in and tells me that the Pathology report came back with not so very good news. The hemangioma wasn't ever a hemangioma at all. It was a mole. A rare kind of mole called a spitzoid. And the worst of the news was that it was Melanoma. Spitzoid Melanoma. It's super rare in Adults, and almost unheard of in Children under 10. The rest of that Dr. Appointment was a little bit of wah-wah-wah-wah-wah. All I could hear in my head was Melanoma. That's skin cancer. That's known to be the deadliest form of skin cancer. Did they get it right? My little boy is only 3 years old. Cancer. Really? Tears. Panic. And the feeling of get me and my baby out of this Dr's office RIGHT NOW mixed with lets get this taken care of as fast as we can.

February 1, 2010. After talking with the surgeon, we knew the next step had to be to go back in and remove a larger area around where the Melanoma was found (called a Wide excision) and also to do Nuclear Mapping to locate the Sentinel Lymph Node to see if the Cancer had spread to other places of his body. They located and removed the Sentinel Node and also sent that into Pathology for some answers.

February 9, 2010. The results are back. The Melanoma was completely gone from his cheek (GREAT NEWS!) and no more surgery needed to be done on his face. But there was not so good news. The Melanoma was found in his Sentinel Node that was removed from his neck.

Next step was to meet with a Pediatric Oncologist at CHOC to talk about further tests and what kinds of treatments we needed to get for a precious little boy.

February 16, 2010. FINALLY got to meet with Mason's Oncologist. He was awesome and gave us almost 2 full hours of his undivided attention and time. He answered every question we could think of and gave us answers to things that we hadn't thought of. Next step was to get Mason in for a PET CT scan and a CT Scan. (Two separate tests) and to also get his blood work done. He also mentioned that from what we know now that Mason's cancer was AT LEAST at Stage 3 just based on the past surgeries and pathology reports, and that the stage could change based upon what the next set of tests tell us. We also were told that Mason will most likely receive some form of treatment. The treatments are hard, and intense and once they start, he would be admitted into the hospital the entire time. (heart breaking for Mommy and Daddy to think about!)

So that's where we are at now. Yesterday all those tests were performed and now we are back in the waiting game of finding out the results. We will meet with the Oncologists again on Monday to talk about the tests and what forms of treatment will be appropriate for Mason and how soon they will need to start, etc.

This has already been so hard, and it's going to be harder. We are so very worried about our little boy and ask you all to continue to keep Mason in his prayers. This journey isn't going to be easy and it's now very clear that this is only the beginning of his battle with Melanoma.

We are grateful for the family & friends, and extended ward family who have been by our side this entire time. We love each and every one of you and we have felt the prayers and the blessings of great faith.

I will do my best to try and give updates on our Mason as we know more. So far we are feeling really hopeful and positive about the outcome of all of this, but know it's going to be a long road to get to the other side and we are going to be fighting.

Mason is a strong little boy. Both in Body and Spirit. We know that Heavenly Father has a plan for him.

Right now my favorite scripture is:

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.

In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.