Hello everyone,

I am not sure at this point who has heard the new and who has not.  For those of you who do not already know, Autumn was diagnosed with cancer of the kidney yesterday after an unrelated incident.  Yesterday she tripped and fell and instantly had a lot of side and back pain, she had ruptured the tumor.  This is good because we found the tumor (very often the case with this type of tumor), but it's not good because the rupture can make recovery a bit more difficult and chemo a bit longer to endure.

She is a brave and strong little girl who had to undergo 3 hours of surgery last night to remove this huge tumor (about the size of a cantaloupe) along with her left kidney.  She made it through surgery and is now in recovery but we have yet to hear a final diagnosis.  Waiting is the hardest part.

All we do know is that it could be a stage 3 or 4 (of course we are hoping for a three) Wilm's tumor.  There are many other factors but all of the pathology reports have to come back before we can know for sure.  We may know more tomorrow, but some of the results take up to a week or two.

Autumn will have to undergo at least 6 months of chemotherapy and radiation which seems so insane to me at this moment in time to even imagine.  All we can do it hope for the best pathology results and the absolute best recovery.

We are at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara right now, most likely for the next 4-5 days.  We will then go home and set her up with all that she needs, she already misses home and her sisters!  At that time, we should be able to have visitors, but at the hospital the doctors recommend that we keep any visitors to the waiting room. 

As I sit and watch the news regarding Japan, it just makes everything in life seem so very surreal right now...

We love you all!