April 14th Update-- Plus Pathology Results!

What a difference a week makes! Kaden has been doing SO good with his recovery! He is able to eat more food. He still doesn't eat a lot of food, but he is able to have a lot of variety in the foods he eats, so that has been nice. He has been able to stay hydrated and he stopped puking a couple of days after my last post a week ago. 

We are now in the phase of, "What is he supposed to do all day?" He has been able to do a couple of projects around the house that are little and don't require a much body strength. The other day, he went for one of his usual laps around the cul-de-sac. I didn't go with him because I was trying to get ready to go somewhere. I was in my bathroom when I heard the weed wacker going. I went over to the window and saw this

I banged on the window, threw my hands in the air, and gave him a "What the heck?!" look.  He turned around and put the trimmer back in the garage. When he came in I said, "What are you doing?!"  He replied, "It needed to be done." Ha ha! We had a very small (4x2) patch of grass that woke up and grew about a foot taller than our other grass that hasn't started growing yet. It looked awful, and it annoyed Kaden every time he walked by it. It was only a 5 minute fix, so I should have done it, but it wasn't on the top of my priority list at the moment. Apparently, it was on his list though. Ha! 

We were expecting him to be a lot more bed ridden than he has been. He has been able to be up and around and that has gone a long way toward his mental health. Car rides still make him a little nauseous, so he mainly sticks around home.  Another reason he sticks to the house is that we never know when he will lose his energy and feel yucky. One Minute he will be doing great and be up doing things around the house like usual, and the next minute he gets really tired. Not tired like he has to sleep, just worn out like all his energy was zapped, and he will have to immediately sit down and rest for a while. I made him take this picture this morning so I could show you how great he is doing. I love that he humors me when I force him to do things like this. 

Yesterday, we went to the follow up appointment with his surgeon at Huntsman. We told her everything that has gone on with his healing this last week and she said that he is doing exactly how she expected him to be. She talked about diet and the weight he has lost. She told him, "no more empty calories" and that "included water." He needs to find calorie filled ways to get hydrated like milkshakes, protein drinks, or even fully loaded soda---no diet anything. She said because he can't eat much food he shouldn't fill his belly with water because we don't want to take what little room he has in his stomach and fill it with nothing. He has lost around 12 lbs and we are hoping that will be it. She said that the body uses any and all calories toward healing, and once the healing slows down, so will the high demand for calories, and he should put the weight back on. 

Pathology Results

So the pathology results are hard to understand and hard to explain. So I will start off with the results were VERY good! 

Basically, the sticky mass was PMP but not "cancer" in the typical sense that we know. I didn't know how to explain PMP so I googled it and this is what I found: 

"Doctors often call PMP a borderline malignant condition. Malignant means cancerous. Cancers usually spread to other parts of the body through the lymphatic and blood system. PMP doesn't behave like this and it doesn't spread to other parts of the body."

The cancer we usually think of is the kind that spreads to other parts of the body thorough the lymphatic system and bloodstream. PMP is a bi-product of cancer cells that are very sticky and mucinous. There are cancer cells in the PMP, but the mass wasn't a "cancer" tumor. The doctor said that she has never seen that before. Usually, if its PMP it is all over the belly, so she was expecting the mass to be a tumor since it was located in only one spot. She said that this surprised her, so she had the pathologist check again. Again, it came back PMP only. 

There were 5 things that the pathologist examined. These were the results. The first one is the mass they removed.

1. Right Quadrant Upper Mass- Mucinious Carcinoma Peritonei. Low Grade. Consistent with patients known appendiceal adenocarcinoma. (This is what I explained above. The surgeon said ignore the word carcinoma as that was just the name of the PMP, but it is not typical "cancer." This is PMP that grew from cells that were left over from his surgery 3 years ago.) 

2. Additional Pancreatic Margin Biopsy: Focal Carcinoma Peritonei. Low Grade and separate cauterized pancreatic parenchyma. (The Focal Carcinoma Peritonei was part of the mass they pulled off. With that mass, they also shaved off some tissue from the pancreas that was attached.)

3. Omentum- Omental tissue with fibrous scar.- negative for carcinoma (YAY!)

4. Ileocolic Anastomosis Resction- Ileo and colonic mucosa with focal ischemic mucosal changes- Negative for Carcinoma. (Double yay!) (This was the where they had to make a new connection on his bowels at the same site from his previous surgery. The tissue they cut out was negative for cancer.) 

5. Falciform Ligament, Resection- Fibroadipose tissue with mild active inflammation. - Negative for Carcinoma. (Another part of the resected tissue that didn't have cancer.) (Triple YAY!!!) 

So basically the PMP is a lot of junk that can grow in your belly and cause all kinds of problems with your digestive system. Luckily, we caught it early before it could do much damage. We are also lucky there wasn't any "new cancer" in there. 

My prayers for the last 2 months have been, "Heavenly Father, please give us the miracle." 

For all intents and purposes, we have received it. Obviously, no cancer and no PMP would be amazing, but realistically, that isn't possible. We have already boarded the cancer train. The miracle that Kaden is ok, that there wasn't any new cancer found, and that his recovery is going so good, is enough to calm our troubled hearts and help restore peace to our souls. 

We want to thank EVERYONE who has been our angels here on earth to help us through this time. We know that you have fasted, prayed, dropped off food, entertained our kids, sent a text, made a phone call, sent a message over social media, cleaned our house etc etc etc. We cannot ever begin to say thank you, but we want all of you to know that what you did for us was a HUGE part of our miracle as well!