Not so Merry Christmas

I am sure that many of you have heard about Rachel. On Dec. 26th we decided to bring her in to the ER and have her shunt evaluated because she was pretty fussy over Christmas. Her shunt was not working properly and they did go in and fix it on Friday. She has had several CT scans and X-Rays since we have been here and the doctors noticed that there was something on her spine. They did an MRI and there appears to be a tumor at the bottom of her spine and she has tumor cells throughout her spine and brain. They are pretty sure that she has some form of cancer but we don't know what yet. They won't even give us a guess. Today she is getting a biopsy done and in a few days we should have a diagnosis and form of treatment. At her age, it's going to be hard to cure cancer so they will probably try to control it with chemo until she's older and they can do radiation. There are many unknowns right now and that is making all of this hard. We have decided to treat her in Texas because we definitely need our family right now. Michael is going to put in for a transfer to San Antonio and I am going to go home and quit my job before the second semester begins. Everything in our life is pretty much in limbo until we get a diagnosis and even then everything has changed. Rachel is actually feeling a little better since she got her shunt fixed. Last night she was jumping on the bed and crawling around her crib. In a way it's a blessing that she's too young to understand what's going on. She has decided that anyone that walks into her room gets a dirty look until they have proven that they are not there to poke her. She has had so many needle sticks that her hands, arms, feet & neck are bruised! They finally put in a more permanent line and that's worked better. The next few days she is going to have to be sedated because the doctor is cutting into her lower back and spine today and she has to lay on her stomach and stay flat for 2 days. We appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers- right now that's all any of us can do! We will keep you posted when we know more hopefully mid-week.