Sad News

Aiden after surgery

Aiden before surgery-He said "can I keep the socks. I like them but I don't like these other things (meaning the gown and bottoms)

Our beautiful boy Aiden was diagnosed with Retinoblastoma (RB) approximatelty 2 weeks ago. It is a cancerous tumor of the eye. It is very aggressive and must be taken care of quickly. His prognosis is positive in that if the cancer is located only in the eye that it will have a 95 to 98% cure rate. If the cancer has traveled outside of the eye and into the optic nerve, he would require chemotherapy. It is a rare form of cancer that affects 300 children each ear and most often strikes in children birth to 5 years. There are two types of RB one being genetic and the other a gene mutation. You can also have unilateral (one eye) or bilateral (both eyes). Aiden has unilateral and most likely is not genetic and until proven Averee is at risk also. There are two types of treatment being done in the US. The first being enucleation (eye removal) and the second being intrarterial chemotherapy (IAC). Enucleation is the standard of care and the IAC is a trial that has been going on for a short three years. Matt, Aiden and myself flew to Pennsylvania this past weekend to find out if Aiden was a canididate for this new procedure and he was. However, Matt and I decided that it was too risky with unknown long term effects on Aiden. We made the decision to do the enucleation. Aiden was admitted to Primary Children's yesterday for the procedure. Everything went well and he is doing great and the pain has improved dramatically. It will be a long six to eight weeks for us until he is fit with his prosthetic eye. Thank you to all who knew and provided our family with love and support through this difficult two weeks.