Help Harper Christian

Harper Christian is the daughter of Shane Christian and Daniyal Richardson. Last week tuesday harper wasnt feeling good which involved severe headaches which lead to vomiting and followed by dizziness. After a weekend of feeling better we attempted to attend school on monday morning, which also resulted in the same out come. SO, we went to her pediatrician at Baldwin pediatrics. After a check up they decided a cat scan of her head and an x ray other belly could help rule out some things and we could go from there. About 2 hours later we recieved a phone call from our dr. telling us we need to bring harper to the e.r. right away and that a doctor would be waiting for us. After some small talk we were informed that our sweet harper has a brain tumor located by or on her brain stem. It had gotten big enough that it was blocking her spinal fluid from draining and was causing pressure from swelling, which makes sense of the headaches and nausea! We were then transferred to sacred heart pediatric hospital in Pensacola. Once we arrived here we were rushed into the picu. We had another mri and surgery this morning to remove the tumor. The awesome news is that they were able to remove the tumor and it was not connected to the brain stem! The bad news is that it looks like it is cancer. The upside with that is that the type of cancer looks to be treatable! We just had another mri and will meet with the oncologists tomorrow morning/afternoon sometime. Update with our sweet harper. She is in a lot of pain but is able to communicate some when needed. She has her motor skills still working properly and has a fighter spirit still. I honestly am so humbled/grateful by all of the prayer warriors that we have had in these few days of craziness. Everyone from our merriam cherry street family has made harper feel so loved. There are so many people that I will forget to tag everyone but please know that we wouldn't be able to get through this if it wasnt for all the continued prayers and positive vibes sent our way. Please know that we love you all and couldn't never thank you guys enough. We know we had a long road ahead of us but luckily for us we are not doing it alone. I am not sure what tomorrow will bring but I will make sure to keep all of you posted as soon as we know anything more! I know that I am forgetting some things and some people...but thank you all for all the prayers, texts and calls....LOVE YOU ALLLLLL!! Update 10/25 Well...just met with the oncologist. They will not be 100% sure of what the tumor is until next week but the name they are lightly using is medulloblastoma. Her doc said that this type of cancer "sheds" a lot. The problem with that is even though we removed the tumor it was located at on the brain stem. The way spinal fluid runs is it starts on top of your head and runs down and around the spine then back up through the brain stem and is then absorbed into the brain. It does this cycle over and over again. So what we are worried about now is that even though we removed the tumor there is a possibility that is has shed and moved along her spine. We will let her recover from her brain surgery for 2 weeks and then begin chemo or radiation. Most likely radiation. Again...this is all dependent on if it is the type of cancer we think it is. The treatment is a intense 6 week treatment of 1 time a day. It most likely will be in Gainesville or Memphis. It seems this type of tumor (if its medulloblastoma) is a rather fast growing tumor that may have only started growing a couple months ago. So we really have to keep an eye on it and act quickly to ensure it doesn't get any worse! Again, our family is incredibly grateful for all the love and prayers that have lifted up our sweet harper no doubt. We love you all and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for everything. Here are some updated pics from the past couple days!