{"id":1941,"date":"2012-05-31T19:19:57","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T19:19:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.wordpress.com\/?p=1941"},"modified":"2012-05-31T19:19:57","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T19:19:57","slug":"a-little-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/31\/a-little-update\/","title":{"rendered":"A Little Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thank you for all your kind words about Victoria.\u00a0 It’s meant a lot to our family.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I thought I’d post a little update on how she’s doing but I’m not sure I ever posted much information to begin with so here’s a super short recap:<\/span><\/p>\n

Victoria had surgery on May 2nd to remove a lump that had been below her ear for over a year.\u00a0 A doctor and specialist had told us that it was “nothing” but we finally pushed for it to be removed and another doctor agreed it was best since it was growing larger.\u00a0 The surgery was a parotidectomy, since the lump was sitting on top of her parotid (salivary) gland.\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

She had a difficult recovery, with a lot of pain and pretty severe swelling on the side of her face.\u00a0 At her two week recheck, the doctor informed us that a biopsy had revealed a rare type of cancer of the parotid gland instead of the benign cyst he was expecting.\u00a0 He said he was optimistic that it had all been removed, though.\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Last week, we went to an oncologist who specializes in cancers of the ear, nose and throat who told us that the surgeon had removed the cyst in a way that was dangerous since he hadn’t known it was cancerous (basically, you want to take extra all around and “ink” it to help determine if there is more anywhere and be sure you got it all).\u00a0 She also palpitated the site to see how Victoria was healing.\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Within about an hour of the appointment, Victoria was in a lot of pain and by that evening she was in excruciating pain, sobbing and shaking with a high fever.\u00a0 We rushed her to the emergency room, where they gave her large doses of pain medicines and IV fluids to no relief.\u00a0 She spent the night in the hospital and in the morning we rushed her back to Sioux Falls to the oncologist’s office.\u00a0 Victoria’s oncologist was now in Aruba, so another specialist saw her and immediately admitted her to the pediatric ward of the local hospital.\u00a0 She had a severe infection where she’d had the surgery (it’s likely the infected area burst and spread during the palpitations the day before).\u00a0 They did emergency surgery that night to deal with the infection, and she was released from the hospital on Sunday.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The good news is that she’s healing very well from this surgery and she’s in much less pain.\u00a0 She had her stitches removed yesterday and the surgeon told us he looked at the pathology report from the initial surgery and the cancer does seem to have been removed well (there were clear margins all around, meaning that the extra that they want was there).\u00a0 She will have a special type of CT scan in three months to look for more cancer.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Victoria is still on antibiotics and pain medication, but she’s getting back to her usual self.\u00a0 She’s pretty weak and things like chewing still cause her pain, but her spirits are much better.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

(If you’d like to send her a card or pick-me-up, you can at:<\/em>\u00a0 Victoria Bayer, PO Box 304, Westbrook MN 56183)<\/em>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

The cancer is a very rare type and it tends to be very slow growing, which is good news.\u00a0 Victoria’s surgeon has another young patient who had the same type of parotid cancer and has been doing well for two years.\u00a0 We’re optimistic right now about the cancer, the surgery, the infection and her medical team.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, every other member of our family has been sick this month too.\u00a0 We’ve had coughs, colds, flus, an eye infection, a respiratory infection, fevers, stomach pains, allergies, sore throats, headaches, lost voices and general exhaustion.\u00a0 We all finally seem to be getting better now that the worst of the crises are over.\u00a0 We have high hopes for June!<\/span><\/p>\n

I’ll be back soon.\u00a0 Thanks again for all your sweet comments, thoughts, prayers, letters and words of support.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n

~Alicia<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thank you for all your kind words about Victoria.\u00a0 It’s meant a lot to our family. I thought I’d post a little update on how she’s doing but I’m not sure I ever posted much information to begin with so here’s a super short recap: Victoria had surgery on May 2nd to remove a lump…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[168,246],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1941"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}