KK is doing great! Her anxiety is high, which is to be expected after everything she has been through. Her bandages came off 2 days ago.  There is a bit of an infection, but she has medicine to clear it up. Home hospital care started on Monday and she knows the teacher that has been coming to do class work with her. That is a huge plus. So we are on an upward swing taking things one day at a time.  Keep on praying:)

We have been home since Saturday now and she is slowly getting better. Night before last I took her to the ER because her pain was different and bad, so I didn't want to take any chances. They took an exray and everything looked good. The right chest cavity  has filled with fluid, which at this point is a good thing. The ER doctors freaked at first until they called her surgeon. He let them know not to drain it. The left lung is staying in place because of the fluid. There has been no shifting! They added another pain medicine and she will be home for 2 months recovering. We are having some issues with our insurance company. I expected it. Just for Mikaela the insurance has been billed  approximately 1.3 million. They are not happy campers. I will spend part of the day today on the phone getting things straightened out. God is good and we are making it through because of him and the support of family, friends, and some people I have never met in my life. Thank you all fornthe prayers and kindness.

Looks like KK will be coming home tomorrow!!!! We still have a few months of getting her moving and physical therapy to strengthen her core muscles. A teacher will be comong to the house 5 hrs a week so she doesn't get behind in school. Im going to be watching her like a hawk. There is still so much to do and overcome. She is going to Sarah and Curtis' gender reveal tomorrow, but will most likely lay down as soon as they reveal the gender. She wants to know if she is getting a neice or nephew! Thank you again for all of your support.

It has been a rough few days since her surgery. They gave her blood during her surgery and hoped her body would replenish the rest. It didnt. So they gave her a transfusion yesterday. Every night since we were out of ICU she has been screaming in pain and having panick attacks to the point she was way over medicated. It seemed like 5 different doctors from the different teams kept changing around her meds. Mike would lose his cookies until someone made her better. Finally we had to get Mike out of there for awhile. Now one doctor is controling her pain meds and she is off the dilodid. She had her first peaceful night last night. She is getting oxycodone which will be tapered down each day and as long as nothing else happens we should be coming home by the end of the week. There will be physical therapy and home hospital care for a few months and a long road ahead. I now know its not as simple as removal and your all better. There is nothing supporting the right rib cage so when she bends her ribs collapse against eachother, but that should get better with time. There is also the chance of the left lung moving toward the open cavity, which could push her heart over and potentially block part of the trachea. They are optimistic about that not happening, but you never know with KK. We have a team walking in the CHOC Walk on October 30th to raise money for the hoapital. It is a 5k walk run and KK will be leading our team. The teams name is Mikaela's Mermaids. Looking forward to it big time.

KK's results came back and it was a carcinoid tumor again. They removed the rest of her right lung yesterday and we are in the PICU for a couple of days before we go back to a regular floor. KK is in a lot of pain at times. Right now she is sleeping like a baby. She had some awesome visitors today. Thank you Logan & Trevor.

KK is a trooper. We are still waiting for results from the last biopsy and she is breathing on in her own. Actually we are out of ICU and she is painting and watching movies. It's just incredible how she is handling everything. As soon as we have the results we will know whether they are taking the middle lobe of her right lung or all of it. So she for sure has another surgery by the end of the week. It is just a matter of how much they will be taking out. Prayers for KK and our whole family.

I didn't think I would update so soon, but I wanted to send some good news. When they took kk's tube out she was as feisty as ever. She let the nurses know what they could and couldn't do. Before the tube was even out she heard her Dad getting what she calls Sappy and she pointed to the door for him to leave the room. She is hilarious and she was right back to herself when she woke and they removed the tube. I will update when we get the biopsy results on Tuesday.
We thought Mikaela was doing so great and on the road to full recovery. She caught a cold and we took her to CHOC to get a chest x-ray just to make sure she was ok, but she wasnt. She had an airpocket taking up about 50% of her right lung. They put a chest tube in and have ran many tests. Yesterday they put a camera down in her lungs to see if there was any leakage from her surgery in June. The stump of the bronchial tube that was left after surgery was 100% open to her chest cavity and they found a another tumor to high up to save the right lung. They are doing their best to find out why this grew so fast and to see if there is a way to save any of the right lung. We are devastated, but in true KK fashion she is stocked she will need to be homeschooled for awhile once she recovers. We went in on the 25th and will be there for probably 2 more weeks. This has taken a devastating toll. We are grateful for any help and prayers for KK. She is an amazingly tough cookie.

KK is still doing great. She has her scans coming up soon and  they are very important. We will find out if any cells are growing back, but they are not expecting that to happen. The doctors did have to change her ability to play sports for awhile longer. The muscles in her side are healing and growing and that is causing minimal pain, but enough that they don't want to take a chance. She has not had to use an inhaler at all since the last surgery. Yae!!!! As long as the scans come back good I will be putting in resumes to go back to work and things should start going back to normal or I should say our new normal.

Thank you again for all the prayers and support.

As of June 21st all of the pathology tests have come back negative for cancer!!!! The portion of the lung they removed was course and granulated in different areas. It was full of infection. She has always been atheletic, but just wait until she kicks butt next season!!

Mikaela's Journey

On May 4th we took Mikaela to the Children’s Hospital ER after being sick for three weeks.  Her doctor kept saying it was her asthma, but she just didn’t seem right. The Doctors at CHOC had an x-ray done of her chest which confirmed pneumonia and possible collapsed lung, and tumor.  All on the right side. The CT scan done next confirmed their suspicions. Mikaela had all of these things as well as swollen lymph nodes around her right lung. Her first surgery was done arthroscopically to get biopsies of her lymph nodes.  They were looking to see if she had leukemia or lymphoma.  I cannot express the fear we had.  Mikaela asked if she needed to shave her and said I am not ready to leave yet.  She was so scared of the unknown. The initial tests came back and she did not have leukemia or lymphoma. Phew! As soon as a relief would come we would get the down side, which was they did not know what kind of tumor she had. The next procedure was a bronchoscopy. They went down her airways with a camera and found the tumor was 100% blocking her lower right bronchial tube. When taking the biopsy the ENT decided to remove the tumor. Another Phew.  We were hoping for it to come back benign and we would be done. While waiting for the results, the doctors ran many tests and had her take many different types of scans. The ups and downs for our family was the worst thing I have ever experienced. On about the 9th day at the hospital the Doctors diagnosed her tumor as a carcinoid tumor.  Then an endocrinologist came in and he said it is a hormonal based tumor that is usually found in people who are in their 40's, 50's or 60's. Not 12 years old.  They still kept throwing around the cancer word while not being very clear with us. Everything I read said cancer, but I clung to the words when the doctor said this is a low level carcinoid and not cancer. They let us take Mikaela home so she could heal and we were to meet with the oncologist in a few days.  It was a relief to be home.  We met with the oncologist and they let us know Mikaela will be having one more surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung and all the lymph nodes around it, because there were still carcinoid cells that showed in the last scan done. Bummer. She was nervous for sure.  We went a few days later to have pulmonary tests done and meet with the surgeon who was going to perform the surgery. Dr. Reyna showed us a virtual view of her lungs that was created by the scans she had done.  He went over how the surgery was going to be done.  The next one they cannot do arthroscopically. They have to go all the way in to remove the lobe and lymph nodes. I told the doctor I wasn’t getting a clear answer regarding her diagnosis. I wanted to know if it was cancer or not. He confirmed it is cancer but on the lowest end of the spectrum. I mentioned to the doctor my worry about how this removal of part of her lung would affect her throughout her life.  She is super athletic! Doctor Reyna is amazing. He said a child is a whole other species than adults.  Mikaela is still growing so her lung will grow into the cavity left from the removal and within two months it will be the same size as her left lung. No limitation in the long run.  We will go back to the hospital on June 3rd for her final surgery.  We are so grateful to God that this was found now while she is young and she can live a much healthier life. I want to thank everyone for the prayers and continuous support.