Cadesca Strong

As most of you already know our baby girl Anisa has been ill for the past 3 weeks. We had brought her to the Doctor on December 19th to have her checked out. The doctor diagnosed her will a virus. Her symptoms were headache, vomiting, extreme sweats, constant fatigue (she was barely awake for 2 hours,in total, for a 24 hour period), lethargy, she was not eating, drinking or using the bathroom. Now everyone who knows Anisa, knows that this is not her character at all! As parents we were very concerned. We called the doctor again the following day as her symptoms progressively got worse. The doctor ordered blood work and told us to let this “run its course”. This did not sit right with us, so on Christmas Eve we took her for a Covid test, thinking this could possibly be the worse but at least we will know. Christmas comes and goes, Anisa could barely move to open gifts. She slept the whole day, didn’t play with anything. We let a few days go by thinking maybe we do need to let it “run its course” and wait for the Covid results. Covid results came back on Tuesday December 29th and were negative, something was not right. Her Dr. thought maybe it was Mononucleosis... those tests were negative as well.  Tuesday night comes and I walk in the door to see Anisa up with Daddy eating chips on the couch. I said Hello and she was facing me but her eyes were facing the opposite direction. I tried to get her to blink a few times in hope they would correct themselves, gave her, her glasses and nothing. It went away in about 15 minutes when she said that she was sleepy and wanted to lay in mommy and daddy’s bed. We picked her up to put her in our bed, we then noticed a large blue vein popping out of her head. We called the after hours service and they wanted us to bring her to the ER. Wednesday around 1 am, we brought her in and the ED doctor ordered an MRI for the headaches and a complete blood panel. We went right in for the MRI and as soon as we came back the results were already waiting for us. Anisa was surrounded by a bunch of nurses hooking her up to machines, taking blood and the Dr. was asking me to step outside to speak with him, where he gave me the worst possible news a parent can get... “your daughter has a large mass on her brain and the OR is coming to get her right now.” I don’t even know what happened after that other than them rushing Serge in the hospital to see us and him signing consents we couldn’t even have the time to read over. Anisa is a very smart little girl, we speak about everything before we do something. I couldn’t even prepare her. I couldn’t say anything to her. I didn’t know what to say. They ran my baby down the hall straight to the OR... as Serge and I ran behind! We gave her kisses and I expressed to her how strong she is and we can overcome anything. After waiting for her to get out of surgery to drain the fluid from her brain, they put a temporary shunt in. Wednesday around 11pm the neurosurgeon wanted to drain what was a cyst around the tumor so they can access the tumor better. Again, Anisa is sedated this whole time. Now they have a better way to the tumor, so Thursday at 8:30 am Anisa went in for another surgery, to remove the tumor. They were able to extract the whole thing, clean! MRI’s and Cat-scans are now showing that there is no remainder of the mass and her fluids are moving properly. Anisa is alert and has been eating, drinking, using the bathroom, talking, and walking. All with assistance but she is gaining all her strengths back! We do not know the pathology of the Tumor yet, we are still waiting on the results but we do have a long road ahead of us. We will be getting services and Early Intervention to make sure we keep all of our skills intact. Anisa is not portraying any cognitive or neurological deficits but we always want to be safe and make sure to never over look things. Although Anisa’s speech is a little slurred... she is right on target and everything will get better in no time with proper services! We could have lost our baby because of a misdiagnosis and such typical symptoms of what looked like a “virus”. Headache is not typical in 2 year old children, especially paired with vomiting and fatigue. As Anisa’s parents, we knew something was not right. Anisa has had headaches for almost a year now, where we were told glasses would correct it, and she had “optical migraines” but never had any imaging, which I asked for on multiple occasions, from multiple Dr.’s. Serge has been my rock. My life literally crumbled before me. With the world being so crazy with Covid, only one parent could stay with Anisa during this time. I am not so strong. Serge has been by her side every second. I could not be more blessed to have him, to parent with him, to spend the rest of my life with him. This is exactly how a father should be. Through this time I have stayed home with my parents getting my house ready for Anisa’s arrival. Serge and I haven’t been able to work through out this period so our finances have come to none. No one ever plans for something like this. We are appreciative of any monetary donations at this time so we can continue to get the necessities Anisa will need and help toward bills & food. Since we will be home and getting on our feet, we will have time to do some thinking... I will be looking for foundations to work with to educate others on what to look for when your child has a brain tumor. Voices should be heard! Ours was not but I do not want this to happen to any other family!