Benign!!!!!!!!

Good news!  The pathology came back saying the tissue is benign!  We are SO relieved!  Dr. Hayden did not end up removing the tumor because it was unclear if the tumor was more a lymphangioma (lymph tissue) or hemangioma (very vascular).  He said they got some good blood squirts when the cut into it (he said, "Let's put it this way, we had to change our hats.").  He said that he is really good at removing lymphangioma's, which tend to be very easily defined from surrounding tissue, but that hemangioma's are trickier and notorious for growing back.  The plan is to look more into the tissue sample from the biopsy and decide from there.  It sounds pretty likely that we may end up leaving it alone for now.  Fine by me!

The morning went pretty well.  There was quite a bit of waiting pre-operatively and they didn't get started until almost 8am.  But then it went quick.  Jen Longcor (who is a peds nurse at Doernbecher's) came down from her floor and sat with me for a while.  It was so nice of her and a really good distraction from the waiting.  Craig ran Katya out to the Godfrey's which took about an hour and only a few minutes after he got back the surgeons came out.  They filled us in on the good news and we only had to wait about 5-10 more minutes before we were called back to join Reagan in the recovery room.  She woke up much better than with her MRI.  She was very groggy and sleepy of course.  She slept in our arms a lot after they got a last set of vital signs and locked her IV.  She had bites of Popsicle in between dosing.  They had us go back to the pre-op area and wait for discharge papers.  We got her prescription filled and were home before 11.  They did a local anesthetic at the incision site and of course she had pain meds during surgery.  We will be giving her Tylenol with codeine every 4hrs around the clock for the next 24hrs to keep her comfortable.  It sounds like the recovery won't be too bad.  Her leg and foot are a bit swollen, as you can imagine it would be.  We have a follow up with Dr. Hayden next week.

Thanks so much for all the prayers!  It has been a stressful few weeks and we are so incredibly thankful.  We know that not every parent is fortunate enough to have healthy children.  Love, Brenda