Let's Start At the Very Beginning. . .

It's difficult to know where to begin, but about 3 weeks ago, my husband and I were in the hospital with our 4 year old, Kayla.  We were told that she had an optic glioma (tumor on her optic nerves) and needed to start chemotherapy immediately.  That came as a huge shock to us and has started our lives down an entirely different path than we ever thought we'd be going down.  Here's a little more background:

During the month of February, Kayla spent almost 3 weeks suffering from horrible and constant  headaches.  We were in and out the doctor about 5 times.  She had an ear infection, then pneumonia, but after those cleared up, she still had these headaches.  We did a CT scan of her head and it came back normal.  So, I was relieved that nothing serious was going on up there.  After that, her headaches seems to go away and she was getting back to normal.

A couple of weeks later on a Saturday, our 4 kiddos were at a friend's house and they pointed out to us that Kayla's pupils were very dilated and maybe that was related to her headaches.  Kayla had been having a couple headaches that past week.  They weren't as bad at all, but I thought that it was a great observation and decided to take her to an optometrist on that next Monday.

Sunday, I noticed a couple of things about Kayla that were a little off.  She came to choir practice with me and after she took her shoes off she came into the room and called out to me.  It took her a few seconds to realize where I was.  She also tripped down the stairs when we were leaving.  I didn't think too much of it at the time.  On Monday morning, she had a hard time getting dressed.  She kept putting her legs and arms into the wrong holes of her clothes.  I made the appointment with the eye doctor and then took the kids to the store to get strawberries for Kayla so she would be willing to go to her appointment (she doesn't like going to the doctor!).  At the store, she was walking really slow and hesitantly and she had a hard time getting in and out of the car.  I was starting to get a little worried at this point.

We got home and ate lunch before we headed to the appointment.  I told Kayla to finish her lunch so we could go and she answered, "I can't see it."  It was sitting on her plate right in front of her.  At this point I was very worried!  Her vision seemed to be deteriorating at a very fast pace.  I dropped my other kids off at a friends and we hurried over to the doctor.

At the optometrist, they did their best to examine my 4 year old who refuses to be examined. :)  They were able to take pictures of her eyes though and the eye doctor showed me that her optic nerves were very inflamed.  When I asked her what could be causing this, she told me that it was either extra fluids in her brain, maybe an infection, or possibly a tumor.  I didn't like any of those options. . .

We were sent right over to the ER at the hospital across the street.  The optometrist told me that they would most likely do an MRI, possibly another CT scan and a spinal tap.  I called Bryson and told him to get over here NOW.  He met us in the ER and after some confusion, we were put in a room and seen by a nurse and doctor.  After examining Kayla (remember, she doesn't like to be examined. . . ), they decided that she did need an MRI, but would need to be sedated and they couldn't do pediatric sedation at that hospital, so they set us to St. Luke's in downtown Boise.  They have a great children's hospital. Before we left the room at the ER, Kayla asked, "Who turned off the light?"  Oh, boy. . .

They did not send us by ambulance, but they did tell us that we needed to get over there immediately.  We made a super quick stop at home to pack a quick bag and get a few necessities since they told us we would most likely be spending the night.  Our great friend and home teacher met us at our house to help give Kayla a priesthood blessing before we headed over to the hospital.

We drove over to St. Luke's and were met by a room full of doctors and nurses.  As you can imagine, Kayla was a bit tired of being examined and they all wanted to examine her.  She was tired and upset by this point and wanted a drink of water.  Unfortunately, because they would be sedating her for the MRI, she wasn't supposed to have any food or water for 6 hours.  Alrighty. . .she was even more upset and begging for water for the next three hours.  It was so hard to see her so uncomfortable.  After more doctors and more questions and more examining and more crying and frustration from Kayla, we were left alone to wait until the MRI.

Just to give you a timeline, we arrived at St. Luke's around 5 or 5:30PM.   They came in to get her for the MRI around 8:30PM.  We went down with her and were able to be with her up until they took her into the MRI room.  I handed her off to 4 people who carried her kicking and screaming onto the bed.  We watched as they put the mask on her and she soon went limp from the anesthesia.  That was hard. . .

Bryson and I just had to wait for a few hours until they were done, so we got some dinner and went back to the hospital.  Bryson then went home for the night to be there with our other kids while I stayed at the hospital.  I tried to get some rest while I waited.  It was about midnight when they came in and told me that she was done.  They had done an MRI on her head and a spinal tap, and then went back and did an MRI of her spine.  The nurse told me that they would come and get me when she started to wake up.

I told them that I needed to be right there when she woke up. . . but she woke up before they came and got me, so I was running down the hall and found about 8 nurses trying to calm her down and keep her from flailing around.  Apparently, her IV had been spurting blood everywhere and she was going crazy because I wasn't there.  I held her tight for awhile and got into the bed with her right as she threw up all over us and the bed.

We got cleaned up and she slept very well the rest of the night.  I, on the other hand, had a hard time sleeping on a hard couch/bed thing, while the fancy air mattress on Kayla's bed inflating and deflating to contour to her body about every five minutes all night long. . .