Update

Anna is in surgery right now and so far everything is going smoothly with that.

However, there is bad news.  The pediatric oncology team met with Matt and I earlier today with the results from Monday night's MRI.  Nothing is known for certain until the pathology reports come back, but the doctors are pretty certain that Anna has Medulloblastoma.  Not only that, but the cancer is not localized to the tumor.  Basically, Anna has one large tumor that they are in the process of removing, and lots of little cancer spots around her brain and spinal cord.

The current plan is to get her through the surgery today, help her heal from the trauma of the last few days, and then start a course of treatment which includes radiation and chemotherapy.

Good news.  Kids with this kind of cancer can be cured.  We are in one of the best possible facilities for dealing with this kind of problem.  As a family, we have already experienced the incredible support network we have here in Dane County and around the country.  The doctors and nurses here are literally some of the best around.  The doctors still assure us that there is nothing different that we or the doctors could have done in the past days and weeks that would have made this any easier.

Bad news.  Since Anna is considered in the "high-risk" category for Medulloblastoma because of the spread of the cancer, she will need to undergo some pretty intensive radiation treatments.  This means that it's not a question of "if" there will be long term side effects, but instead the questions are "what kinds of long term side effects will there be" and "how extensive will they be?"

So here's the current prayer requests.

Please continue to pray that the surgery today safely gets all of the big tumor.

Please pray that Anna does not experience any side effects from being under anesthesia, specifically no more nausea or headaches.

Please pray that Anna gets a bit of an appetite back tomorrow and starts eating again.

Please pray that Kate finds words to express what she's feeling and that we can help her find strategies to cope with the situation.  All she knows is that Anna is sick and needs to be in the hospital, but she's having a hard time in her own way.

Please pray that Ethan stays strong and resilient.

Please pray that I am able to get some restful sleep tonight.  Matt and I will be at the hospital over night; Matt will be in Anna's room, but I will be down the hall in a "sleep room".  I haven't had much sleep in the last few days and was already pretty tired and empty before this past weekend began.

Thanksgiving prayers ... Anna's nausea subsided a bit overnight so she was able to rest a bit.  Matt and my parents were able to sleep well at our home last night.  Instead of struggling to get Anna to urinate, a catheter was easily placed overnight.

Also, Matt and I are trying to keep life as stable and constant for Kate and Ethan as we can.  This means that we may be doing things with those kids out in the community and you may run into us.  This may sound weird, but if this were happening to another family, I'd like to know what to do or say if I ran into them somewhere.  Now that it's happening to us, here are some ideas.  Feel free to say hi.  Feel free to ask about Kate and Ethan and how they're doing on that particular day.  Please don't ask how we are doing or how Anna is doing.  Please realize that if we're with Kate, we're probably trying to put in some "Kate time" and want to keep our focus mainly on her so we won't want to talk with other adults for very long.  Any "Kate time" that we have had with her since Sunday has been very disjointed and has had lots of interruptions.  Thank you for your understanding.

We're starting to get some ideas of how we'll need help to get through the days and weeks to come, but will probably use someone from our church to coordinate that.  Stay tuned to this blog for more information.

We are going to stop using Facebook to communicate and will strictly be using this blog from now on.

Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers.  We know that there are literally thousands of people all around the country thinking about us and praying for Anna.

Life is just not fair right now, but we know and trust that God is in control.  He will continue to be with us and our family in the days and weeks to come.