Olivia's Journey

This campaign is to help a local little girl named Olivia and her family with the long journey ahead of them. Olivia who is only 2 years old has been diagnosed with a brain tumour that is grade 3. This is a very fast growing cancerous tumour. She is undergoing numerous surgeries and now starting chemo treatments and will be going to the states for radiation. This young family needs as much help as they can get. As I personally know among many others this is a very expensive process and pulls parents away from there jobs. Together as a community we can help them along there way. Thank you for your support❤️The following is her moms story about little Olivia. So little Livie was saying her neck hurt in the beginning of July. When I would put her hair in a pony tail or she sat in her car seat she would complain of the neck pain. Mid July, we went to Wallaceburg for the weekend and this is when things got worse. She didn't only have neck pain but did not want to eat or drink, did not want to do anything but lay down.l and was very agitated. I was obviously now very concerned so Monday morning I called my family doctor. She was away that week but got us in to see a nurse practitioner on Tuesday. On Tuesday we saw the nurse practitioner and she sent us to Chatham emerg. They sent us home without doing any X-rays and said it's just a strained muscle in her neck and to put a cold pack on it if she will tolerate it and to give her Tylenol for pain. They also referred us to a paediatrician. The next day we saw the paediatrician. He took the neck pain a little more serious and called Victoria hospital in London to get ahold of orthopaedic doctors who specialize in children. We went to Victoria hospital the same day to see them. He also prescribed Motrin and wanted to see her for a follow up appointment. The orthopaedic doctors focused on muscle and bone and none of the other symptoms. They at least did X-rays and ruled out any fractures. Again we were sent home saying it's just a sprain neck. They told me to put a warm pack on her neck and give her the Motrin she has been taking. We got a follow up appointment with them for the next week. So we went back to the paediatrician and I stressed about the other symptoms. He pretty much told me that he is going to focus on her neck pain and worry about everything else after the pain is gone away .. Our follow up appointment in London came around. I had written down the 27th but it was for the 26th so we missed the orthopaedic appointment. Which is totally okay. Because instead of focusing on ortho again we went to emerg and they had neuro check her out right away. She got a CT done and the doctor told us that they found a mass in her brain and that they will be doing an MRI when they can which usually takes at least a day. But within an hour she got an MRI. While Olivia was in MRI neuro doctors sat me down and explained what they were seeing. There was a large mass in her brain that is around her brain stem and cerebellum. It's wrapped itself around nerves that control respiratory, swallowing, hearing, face muscles, speech, balance and coordination. He also explained that these nerves have been stretched from the mass so if it is taken away from the nerve it will not be used to being stretched and can affect the function of the nerve. The tumour was causing lots of pressure and causing her brain fluid to not drain like it should. She had lots of fluid causing even more pressure. So after finding this they needed to perform surgery. So Zach took a train down right away and as soon as he got here we spoke to the surgeon and she told us all the scary stuff that could happen and shows us Olivia's MRI. Then it was surgery time. She went in at 10:30pm July 27th and came out 4:30am. So her mass was a bleeder so they only got 30% of it out. If they kept going they would have had to replace her whole blood volume which would have caused her blood to not clot and her ph balance would be off and cause her further complications. She also got a drain put in that takes out the extra fluid. So they have been monitoring her output. Then a few days ago she had surgery to put the drain from her brain to her intestines. The mass was sent to be biopsied and the 2 week wait was brutal. Well we got the results. And Olivia has a anaplastic ependymoma tumour. These tumours are graded 1,2,3&4. Not stages but grades. Grade 1 & 2 are benign and 3 & 4 are malignant cancerous rumours. Well Olivia has a stage 3 tumour.. her tumour is fast growing and located within the ventricles (fluid filled spaces in the brain). Not in her brain tissue. It's also located in the back, lower part of the brain and/or the spinal cord. Her tumour could spread to her spinal cord through her spinal fluid. Even if the whole tumour is taken out, cancer cells will still be in the brain and tumours can form once again. Now knowing this we were told a plan of action. She will having a hearing test, kidney function test, a lumbar puncture, and an MRI before starting chemo. Chemo can affect hearing, and kidney functions so they want a baseline. And also a baseline of how her tumour is looking. And the lumbar puncture will tell us a bunch of information. So she will be starting 2 rounds of chemo as soon as the tests are done first round is 22 days the second round is 29 days.After chemo she will be having another surgery to remove hopefully all of the tumour. Then she will be receiving radiation for 6 weeks, which will most likely be in the states. They do proton therapy there. And it focuses more on the cancer cells so her brain doesn't get radiated, but just where the cancer cells are. After radiation it's a possibility that she will receive more chemo. So we are going to be a part of a trial. In this trial, the top 200 oncologists from all over the world will be looking at Olivia's scans and biopsies and making the best plan for her. Also, a computer does a coin flip to see weather she gets chemo after or not. They do not know if chemo after radiation helps but that's why there is this trial. We can back out at any time. But if she gets chemo and it helps then great. And if not well we tried. And if we will not be chosen to get chemo after then she can start to hopefully recover and start physio and such. If everything goes well and she is able to go home we will have to be close to the hospital and rush her there if she gets a fever or even a sniffle. Or if she gets any neurological symptoms. This little girl has such a long road ahead of her. Please send all your prayers and positive energy. We need them desperately.