It’s Sunday!

Some of you may remember this post. Sometimes we are called to Good Friday. And sometimes we are called to Easter Sunday. It’s Sunday here in the Plett Laurendeau residence. And the tulips are up!

On January 10th we felt as though our world shifted. We were told some shocking news about our unborn son and from that point until May 23rd we felt a heavy load that affected every aspect of our lives. Our son had a very large tumor on his back and we had no idea what our future would look like.

I was very guarded about showing a photo of the tumor on this blog as I felt rather protective of him. I didn’t want people to come on to gawk at my son. I showed close friends and family but that was it. That has changed a bit now and I’ll explain why later.* Below is what the tumor looked like in February. It might be tricky to understand the image completely but at the top is the back of his head and neck and then his shoulder comes off into his arm. As you can see, the tumor covers a large part of his back, basically from his neck down to his elbow. It also sticks out quite far. (If you click on the photo it opens up larger and the labels might help.)

The next photo is Jack directly out of my womb. Already not as dramatic.












And the third photo is Jack on Friday, May 23rd, a day after his birth – a completely different looking growth than what we saw in the womb.









We felt less worried the moment we saw it. And yet, we didn’t know. We waited. Yes, it seemed much less dramatic but perhaps it would still affect his heart a great deal. Or, perhaps he would still have to spend some time in NICU and be poked and prodded and tested. And perhaps he would still have to have surgery or not be able to go home with us as the growth would be too sensitive or tender.

But, just as our world changed dramatically on January 10th it did again on Friday, May 23rd at about 12:15. The pediatric surgeon made his way to our room to take a look at Jack. He removed his sleeper and turned him over. And basically the first words out of his mouth were "that’s it?" And we exhaled. He went on to tell us that he no longer thought it was an AVM at all (it was so hard to tell in ultrasound photos) but that it was an angioma and that it had shrunk dramatically since the first image. (Angiomas are a lot more common and a lot less frightening than AVMs.) In his opinion (and we’ll keep it since he’s one of the top pediatric surgeons in the city) Jack doesn’t even need to go for an MRI at this time and… HE CAN GO HOME WITH US. And there is a chance that he might never need surgery! (Or, if he does it will be more for cosmetic reasons.) Basically, right now we’re just to keep taking photos of the growth to see if it changes and then in a month we are to meet with the surgeon again to see where we go from there.

Life is just so very, very good. J-L and I had moments of dreaming of the best case scenario (maybe he can stay in the room with us! maybe he can go home with us! maybe the tumor won’t look all that bad after all!) but we rarely allowed ourselves to imagine it could be this good.

We’ll always remember Good Friday as we are called to do but for today we are putting on our Easter Sunday clothes and enjoying the tulips.

Thank you again for all of your prayers. We serve an amazing God. (One that shrinks tumors.)

* I felt it necessary to show the original tumor photo so that you could understand how frightening it looked and how banal it looks now.