The day our world turned upside down.

Yesterday, May 14 , 2013, our lives changed in a huge way. My little Max started having really painful stomach aches a week and a half ago. He is usually such a happy and active little guy, even when he's sick, but this was different. He would cry for hours and be writhing in pain. I felt so helpless because nothing I did or gave him helped him feel better. This went on for a few days until I finally took him into the ER on Friday night thinking maybe he had swallowed something he shouldn't have like a coin. He's always finding coins and I have no idea where he gets them from. I wish it would have been something like that, instead, the doctor felt around his stomach and felt that his liver was enlarged. They did an x-ray just to make sure. They sent us home and told us to get in touch with a pediatric GI the next week. So Monday morning I made an appointment with the pediatric GI. Tuesday morning I called his regular pediatrician, Dr. Cornish, who we absolutely love, and he wanted to check out Max himself. After checking Max out, he told us to go to the hospital and get an ultrasound to see what was causing his liver to be so big. At the ultrasound, they found a mass on his kidney's that was about the size of a grapefruit. Now I really started loosing my calm. They told me we needed to do a CT scan and that we'd have to have him sedated for it since there's no way a two year old, especially mine, is going to hold still long enough. If you've never watched your child be sedated, it's scary. I don't recommend it. They did the CT scan with no problems and even did the contrast to get a really good image. That's when I started to hear them talking about "high priority" and talking in hushed voices. Now I was really scared. But I still told myself it was nothing. It had to be nothing. This is my baby we're talking about. We got to a recovery room and Dr. Cornish called me back with the results telling me that the presumed diagnosis was a Wilms Tumor and that it is cancerous. Now my world completely fell apart. Thank goodness the pediatric nurse was right there to hold onto me and let me sob on her. Nate was just getting off work and hurrying to the hospital as fast as he could. Thankfully, Nate is such a calm, steady support system, cause I couldn't have handled if he broke down too. They released Max as soon as he woke up and we headed to Dr. Cornish's office to discuss what would happen next. Dr. Cornish is so positive and was very reassuring that Max would be okay in the end, but he even said that it was going to suck going through the process of getting him okay. He made an appointment for us for Thursday to go to Primary Children's hospital and meet with a surgeon and a cancer doctor. And that's where we are at for now. At least we had today to try and have a normal day before the craziness starts. I just wish I could stop crying. I'm so grateful for all the love and prayers that have been offered and for the amazing support everyone has shown so far.