The Mysterious Mr. Doohickey

What a day. For those that want the bottom line, William is doing well, sleeping off his 4-hr surgery in which he gained a broviac catheter in his chest, and parted ways with a portion of his tumor, blood, and bone marrow.

This morning William enjoyed a walk, another playroom art project, a Harry Potter trivia game (no contest, Dad loses again), and another visit from Millie the dog. William also had a visit from Josh, a 9-yr old neighbor in the hospital, who showed him what his new broviac would look like. William passed the pop quiz from the hospital staff regarding what would be happening in his surgery, and since he wasn't able to eat breakfast or lunch before surgery, he made sure to place his dinner order for pepperoni pizza and glazed donut (good thing he isn't a heart patient).

Will was very brave going off to surgery and eased his mind by concentrating intently on a good game of MarioKart on a loaned DS (thanks Zak!) all the way until he arrived in the operating room.

Surgery went well, although it sure felt long. The surgeon informed us that:

• the tumor was confirmed as malignant
• it likely comes from the kidney, but it is not a standard kidney tumor
• it is very necrotic (growing fast, and as it expands it dies behind itself)
• the tumor is very gelatinous, described as "like applesauce" (hopefully nobody's reading this over breakfast)
• Will's left kidney is not functional
• the bone scan revealed some abnormalities in his spine and hip, which are both adjacent to the tumor
• Normally, they'd have a better idea of what type of tumor it is by now, but this appears to be a rare case, the surgeon characterized it as a "variant" of a renal tumor

So it looks like William has given these brainy oncologists a bit of a challenging assignment. We're eager to see the pathology report and diagnosis of this mystery tumor in the next couple days. He has mostly been asleep since getting out of surgery, and doesn't seem to be in pain (thanks to the morphine). He'll be in the ICU over the next day so they can constantly monitor all his vitals, and make sure his blood count and kidney function are well-behaved. Much love goes out to everyone - keep those prayers coming to unmask this dastardly doohickey.