EPENDYMOMA

We are scheduled the next day to meet with the best pediatric brain surgeon in the country. He has a corner office and we sit down. He proceed to tell us and then show us what he thinks the tumor is. Simpley put the tumors he believes it to be are nasty and fatal. he's "not in teh business of butchering children". "With this type of tumor we are talking about hitting the lottorey for long term survial". He's shows us image from the CAT scan. Its our childs brain that has a black mass that appears to us to be 1/3 of her brain. WE are told surgery would be that day, it should take about 4 hours and he will do everything he can but will not remove any tumor if it is attached to the brain steam. or surrounding sturctures.

Later that day we walk down the halls of the PICU transfer to a quite elevator and wait with our daughter for her surgery. She leaves us without a tear and we proceed to wait for the outcome. 4 hours surgery maybe more. WE bunker down... read magazines try and not look at the clock. 2 hours later the surgeon appears. Talk about fear running over your body. Good news he says, she did great, the tumor is not what I thought it was it appears to be something we hardley discussed. The surgery was bloody so I had to work fast but the tumor appears to be an ependymoma. " Its odd to dance in a childrens hospital ... an overcomming of joy that was almost as powerful as the day befores gloom.

We would wait almost two weeks for a final analysis but it was in fact a grade 3 empendymoma. Fully resected.