Day 3 evening.

9:58:00 PM Atticus Army 2 Comments

Hey Army,

This afternoon as we prepared for our sweet boy to head to his angiogram and embolization we couldn't help but feel uneasy and nervous. Once again we had to send him into the trusting hands of a pediatric angiogram specialist as well as a brain embolism specialist.  We held him in our arms, ran our fingers through his hair and kissed his sweet face a thousand times! in these moments we thank our heavenly father for an amazing team up here in Seattle! Even though this situation is very difficult, just knowing the caliber of care Atticus is receiving is so comforting! We know with assurity that Heavenly fathers hand was the leading force to get us here and admitted to this incredible team and hospital.




WE were admitted here with no physicians referral. it was a phone call and sending them his MRI, once they received his MRI they requested that due to the seriousness of his case and size of the tumor we rush immediately here! We know it was not by coincidence that we are here and we know its from all the prayers and fasting on our behalf.

The specialist had come in prior and talked to us about risks of doing this procedure which included stroke and loss of some motor skills. True these things don't normally happen but anytime you are working near the brain there are definitely big risks. For those of you who don't know what it embolism entails, they will use the same catheter system that was in place for the angiogram imaging, and snake a smaller catheter type thing up into the tumor.  They will use real-time imaging to find appropriate vessels that they can place small particles to "block" the vessel and thereby embolizing it and cutting off the blood supply to the supported tissue.

This is a very risky procedure in the brain as with any tumor there are many shared blood vessels and you risk the placed embolism moving further down stream than desired and killing non-tumor associated brain tissue.  This is where the technical skill and expertise comes in from our wonderful staff here.  We had 4 specialists in on this procedure.  One was the Head IR (intervention radiologist) that was an expert in the embolizing of blood vessel's, He had a pediatric angiologist, or an expert in pediatric anatomy on vessels, whose job was to get the IR safely to the tumor in the brain.  We had a pediatric neurologist, whose job was to make sure he could assist the IR through the brain itself safely, and finally a pediatric anesthesia.  It was really amazing to see the care given to our little boy.
 After nearly 6 and a half hours of being at IR for his procedure, they finally brought our baby back to the ICU to us! Oh how incredible that feeling is to see your baby once again. Tears of joy and gratitude were flowing strong! Our hearts are so full tonight and we feel so loved and blessed! We can't hold him for at least 6 hours and he has to be completely flat and still so he is currently on medications to keep him relaxed. I want to just go grab him out of his hospital crib and love on him but not until 1:30 AM.



Caleb and I are just so grateful to have our sweet boy back in our room with us ! We felt so comforted today and at peace during his LONG procedure!! We know it was from all of your prayers, good thoughts, fasting and love! We have an incredible army of support behind us and we are forever grateful to each and everyone of you!  We feel your love and we want you to know we recognize it and your prayers and support is what is carrying us through!  Special thanks to both of our wonderful families that sat through this whole day, kept us company, and help ease our troubled souls while our baby was away from us.

Thank you all for being a part of ATTICUS'S ARMY! WE LOVE YOU!