Fight for Aspen!

My name is Meggan and I’m trying to raise money to help with medical and travel expenses for my best friends daughter, my bonus niece Aspen Morgan Bower

Aspen is a two year old, sassy, independent girl and here’s her story from her moms perspective.

I’ve been running this post through my mind over and over again for the past 4 days trying to come up with the right words to say, but there’s really no easy way to say it. Our world was turned completely upside down with the words that no one ever wants to hear, especially as a parent.

Tumor. Cancer. Chemotherapy. Radiation. & so many more.

We still don’t have all the answers, but I feel I have enough now to explain what is in store for our one and only Aspen Morgan. She has a long road ahead of her yet, but we’re making great strides and heading in the right direction.

Monday evening she started vomiting. My first thought was “oh joy, a stomach bug.” She threw up all throughout the night and into Tuesday morning. By Tuesday morning, she couldn’t even keep water down. As we were snuggling up, I felt a hard lump on her side. I immediately texted Blaze and told him I didn’t like it and was calling her doctor. They didn’t have any appointments available and told me to take her to the emergency department to have it looked at, so that’s where we headed. She went through bloodwork, urine samples, and an ultrasound at UPMC Williamsport who decided to transfer us to Danville. By this point, all we knew is that there was a mass on her kidney and I can just tell she is getting more miserable.

We get to Danville Tuesday night and she gets more blood work, urine samples, X-ray, etc. We talked to all kinds of nurses, doctors, surgeons, & oncologists who all suspect the mass is a Wilms Tumor, which is one of the most common kidney tumors in young children. We won’t have the official diagnosis till her pathology tests come back next week, but that is what is suspected.

Wednesday she had a CT scan which showed the tumor had pretty much absorbed her entire right kidney, but it also showed there was no indication of it spreading to any other organs, which is great. Even though the tumor had destroyed her kidney, I’ve been told multiple times how impressive it is that I caught it this early because typically when these tumors are first detected they are 3-4x bigger than what hers was.

Yesterday, our girl went under her first major surgery to remove both the tumor and her right kidney. Lucky for us humans, we can function with only one kidney. Unfortunately, the tumor did rupture during surgery which will add radiation and more chemotherapy time to her road of recovery, but the good thing is the entire tumor was able to be removed and it had not spread to other organs or surrounding blood vessels. She also had a port placed that will be used for chemo.

We will remain in Danville for the next day or two while she recovers from her surgery, but she is doing amazing. She is making great strides and starting to get back to her normal sassy self. We will be able to come home while she finishes healing from surgery. Her pathology results should be available by the end of next week which will give us the remainder of the answers we need.

How aggressive was the tumor? How much radiation and chemotherapy will she need? Is it in fact Wilms or a different type of tumor? We are hopeful that Wilms is the answer as this type of cancer has an 85-90% chance of being completely cured.

Please please please keep us in your thoughts and prayers while we navigate through this difficult time. I know she is a fighter and one tough cookie, so I have no doubt in my mind she will come out on top of this and kick cancer’s ass! It’s one of those things you think will never happen to you or your kids until it does. Hug your babies extra tight. I know I’ve hardly left her side and I miss my John so so much. & my Nixon who has been able to FaceTime with us daily!❤️