Surgery On Wednesday 4/29

We met with Dr. Moss, Kenzie's neurosurgeon, this morning. He told us that the new growth that we had been told was a cyst is probably new tumor growth. Makenzie will have surgery on Wednesday to remove it. We won't know for sure whether it is a fluid filled cyst of tumor until they actually get in there to remove it. The good thing about the new growth is that it is a solid mass, higher up in her brain, and is operable (the original tumor is not operable because it is in the top of the brain stem and is not a solid mass... it weaves its way inbetween and around healthy brain cells). The surgeon will remove all of the new growth, but will not attempt to remove any of the old tumor as the risks are too great. He said it will be a fairly straight forward surgery, the part he will be removing is easily accessible. They will send what they remove to the lab to see exactly what the new growth is and what treatments might be needed. After surgery, Makenzie will stay in the hospital for about 7 - 10 days. 5 - 8 days after the first surgery, she will need a second surgery to revise her shunt since the first surgery will probably clog it up. Then, after the shunt revision, if all goes well, she will come home 1-2 days later. They gave us the option of doing the surgery tomorrow or next Wednesday, but we decided to wait so we could get everything in order and have a little fun as a family first. We will be fasting this Sunday, 4/26, for a successful surgery and the best possible test results. We welcome and appreciate any and all who would like to join us. We will post updates as we get any new information.