Back in Time

I know many of you are wondering how this all started. Well, let me share. A week ago today (Thursday, Feb. 5) Xavian was his normal 2 months self. Until, late afternoon he woke up screaming. Most people were saying well, he's just fussy. Any mother knows what I am talking about when I say you know when your child is in pain. He was screaming like that. I tried to feed him and calm him down. Nothing really seemed to work. Xavian would scream for 5 or 10 minutes and fall asleep. Then about 15 minutes later he would wake screaming again. He wouldn't eat after his 3 o'clock feeding. Finally, at 8pm we decided something was seriously wrong and needed to take him to the ER. My aunt came and sat with Dante as he slept while we headed to Children's Hospital in Birmingham, AL. We got there and barely had the paper work filled out when they got Xavian back to a room. I was thinking maybe he had an ear infection. The resident looked him over and told us that he could tell something was wrong but didn't know what that was. He went and got his attending and she came in to look as well. It didn't take her long to know something was wrong too.

By this time he was already dehydrated and they were getting fluids in him. At the same time they put in a catheter, drew blood and more blood, and a spinal tap was done. He had wires hooked up and tubes everywhere. All the preliminary test came back negative but said they needed to keep him for at least 2 days to make sure the labs they send off came back negative. We were finally up to Special Care Unit around 3 am. Visiting hours were over at 6 am so Matt and I decided to come home and sleep for a few hours and head back up there. At 7:30am my phone rang and it was the resident Dr. in the ER calling to let me know we needed to head back up-they had moved Xavian to PICU because he had stopped breathing. Praise God that a Dr. just happened to be standing at Xavian's bedside when he stopped breathing!

Matt and I rushed around the house to get it together and headed back to Children's. It was rush hour at that time so it took us nearly 45 minutes to get there. While we were on our way Xavian was having a CT done. Once we got there he had just gotten back up to PICU. Before we could even go back to see him the Dr.s wanted to talk with Matt and I. The surgeon said the CT had shown a VERY LARGE mass on the right side of Xavian's brain. He was going to order another CT (with contrast) and an MRI to see if it was a tumor. I am so thankful for the social worker that was in the room with us (Peggy). I don't wish this kind of news on any parent.

Right after the CT the surgeon came back out and let us know that Xavian was being preped for surgery. They only had time for the CT because it showed there was a LARGE tumor creating great pressure on his brain. The tumor was causing the bleeding (which is why he stopped breathing). They needed to remove it ASAP. He then began to tell us that Xavian could bleed out during surgery if the tumor was bloody. After that, I'm not sure what else he said. Upon receiving all that information and having a migraine I couldn't take any more. He did say the surgery could take 4 hours. Only 2 1/2 hours later the surgeon came back and said that they removed most of the tumor and it wasn't as bloody as they thought. Thank God! And, thank you to all that prayed for Xavian during that time. Thanks to Kym Mitchell that made all those phone calls for us.

We are now just waiting for the pathology results to see what lies ahead for our family.