Christmas-palooza ends as a New Year begins

As I sat in our Christmas Eve service at church thinking about the birth of our Savior my thoughts drifted to Dillan having a brain tumor. I thought how different life has become and how thankful I am our Savior was born. I am so very thankful He gave us the miracles surrounding Dillan's diagnosis. This Christmas has been more special with the knowledge our Savior loved us so much He chose our family to receive a gift we could share with everyone. Obviously no one would ever want anyone, let alone their own child, to suffer through having a brain tumor. However, as we sat in the PICU that first weekend prior to surgery I was overcome with a sense of peace which could only come from God. I knew no matter what happened during surgery or any point from there forward He would carry us through the rough stuff and walk with us through all the rest.
New Year's Eve always causes people to reflect on what happened during the past year and think of ways and things they'd do differently. Although our year may have had twists and turns we were not expecting I have many fond memories from 2011. I will resolve in 2012 to do things better than I did before and continue to put my trust and faith in God. I Wish everyone a very Happy and Blessed New Year!

Our last morning to wake up looking...

I have thoroughly enjoyed our elf this year. The kids have gotten up each morning excited to find him. They've gone to him and explained their actions or made sure he knew what a sibling had done to them. It is too cute listening to them talk to him. He had fun during his visit for Christmas and even baked a surprise for the kids.

He made a snow angel in the sugar from his overnight cookie baking. Each of the kids received an elf cookie.

This morning he was hiding in the tree and next him was an updated List and we all made it to the Nice List! Ethan and Dillan still had one present on the shelf to try and earn back...

Marshmallow will be missed but since he has to keep tabs on these wild Foster kids I have a feeling he will surprise us throughout the year for check-ups.

Marshmallow, Our Elf

Last year our family was blessed with an elf the kids named Marshmallow. He checked on us throughout the Christmas season and left a note to let us know he'd see us again next year. This year he arrived the beginning of December and has been bringing smiles every morning. I adore listening to all of my children as they wake up and go on the hunt for Marshmallow. He has ridden in a sleigh, gotten into a marshmallow fight with Mr Potato Head, been a crime fighter with Batman, and read stories and played board games with some of the stuffed animals. We found him going over our current Nice or Naughty standing one morning. He has been pretty well behaved compared to some elves I've heard about, however, we did find our underwear hanging in place of our stockings one morning.

Isabelle decided more of her babies should hear the story.

Mr Potato Head got hit between the eyes. Marshmallow made his fort out of all our red labeled cans :)

The kids loved Mommy being on Naughty Watch!

I've enjoyed sharing the magic our elf is bringing to our house. This morning the kids came out of their rooms to find Marshmallow had made a zip line down our stairs.

Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.

Our "New" Normal

Our lives will never be the same. We now have a new normal and are adjusting to it. We enjoyed Halloween and Thanksgiving at home instead of Dillan and I spending it at St Jude's. I tell anyone that will listen about the miracles God has performed in our lives to hopefully plant a seed or give them something to tell to plant a seed. We are looking forward to Christmas in a few days! We take it one day at a time and when things get crazy we remind ourselves life can change in an instant...

Recently Dillan was featured on the front page of our local newspaper.

God continues to bless us.

St Jude's Gives Us News

We traveled to St Jude Children's Research Hospital on September 25th. We were very blessed to have friends generously offer to fly us to Memphis. We drove from the airport to the hospital and as we made our second wrong turn we heard tornado sirens and noticed clouds forming a funnel! We made it into the hospital and got Dillan registered. After we had him evaluated by a doctor and received our 3 inch binder of information we would need to know as a St Jude's family we headed over to our home away from home at the Memphis Grizzly's House. The next morning we got up ready to start our full day of scheduled appointments. As we waited to meet Dillan's doctor some of the medical army came in to meet us and ask various questions. While his nurse was going over things with us there was a knock at the door. The person was fairly insistent she needed to tell her something real quick so our nurse apologized and stepped out. What happened next again is a moment that changed our lives. When she reentered the room she was very excited and then she told us "This only happens a few times a year and most times it is not in the good direction, however, Dillan's diagnosis is being changed to a Pilocytic Astrocytoma. I honestly did not know how to take this news as odd as that may sound. During the course of the week I tried to digest everything and when we sat down with our doctor to review the MRIs I still had mixed feelings about this new diagnosis. As a mother my heart wanted to take this new information and run with it but my mind kept thinking if it changed once it could change again and I couldn't let my hopes get up completely. At this point I had learned Tim and I are Dillan's biggest medical allies so I voiced my concerns to Dr Wright. The entire staff at St Jude's is beyond helpful and kind so she gladly went through everything with us. She assured me she understood my concerns and explained when the tissue samples were examined by a St Jude's neuropathologist it was discovered that the cellular structure was not that of an ependymoma. A neuropathologist specializing in identifying ependymomas was asked to examine the slides and he said 100% positively Dillan did not have an ependymoma. His doctor let us know if you are going to have a brain tumor (cancer) this is the best one to have as weird as that may sound (I assured her at this point that did not sound weird at all). I fully believe God changed Dillan's diagnosis! We have witnessed such miracles during this journey!

Pilocytic Astrocytoma Characteristics
Slow growing, with relatively well-defined borders
Grows in the cerebrum, optic nerve pathways, brain stem and cerebellum
Occurs most often in children and teens
Accounts for two percent of all brain tumors

Treatment
Surgery is the standard treatment. If the tumor cannot be completely resected, radiation or chemotherapy may be given. Chemotherapy may be given to very young children instead of radiation therapy to avoid damage to the developing brain. Some of these tumors can progress to a higher grade, so it is important to be diligent about following up with the medical team after treatment.