A message from Kevin
#OliviaStrong 👍🏼
About a month ago Olivia mentioned she couldn’t taste or smell. Christie took her to get a Covid test as we didn’t want Olivia going to school if she was sick. The test came back negative, no Covid. A few days later her eye began to show some swelling. I asked her at the dinner table if she was ok. She mentioned people keep asking her if she’s alright because it looked like she was crying as fluid periodically dropped from her eye, we figured the swelling. We took her to the eye dr the next day as swelling in her right eye remained. They gave her some drops to help remove what they felt could have been an infection. After 7 days of eye drops we returned to see the eye dr as swelling never subsided. He set us up with an ophthalmologist the next day (last Tuesday). The ophthalmologist sent us immediately to the ER where they ran tests, took a CT scan and MRI. Scans revealed a golf ball sized mass behind her eye growing in her nasal cavity, hence the loss of taste and smell. Emergency surgery was set for 9:30 that night but quickly changed to 6:00 to speed up the process. The surgeons successfully removed 1/2 of the mass in an effort to relieve swelling in her eye and test the mass for cancer. Upon removal they knew exactly what it was and began to prepare us for the worst. We spent a few days in recovery before going home last weekend to relax with family before surgery Monday morning, a 7 hour procedure. At first doctors felt they removed all the rhabdomyosarcoma tumor but scans later Monday revealed some tumor remaining behind her eye. Fortunately doctors feel chemotherapy will work to kill the remaining mass (size of a sugar cube) behind her eye.
Olivia is awake and feeling better. She ate some bacon 🥓 and eggs 🥚 this morning. We hope to go home in the next day or two and relax until we begin chemo around Christmas 🎄. She’ll have a long chemo schedule but is ready to fight this thing. There’s no doubt sweet Olivia will kick Cancers Ass.
Parents, none of us ever imagine our kids will get cancer. I know we never in our wildest dreams thought Olivia would. Hell she’s already had 2 heart surgeries, spent weeks and weeks in the hospital, and battled numerous bouts of pneumonia before visiting Boston Children’s Hospital and removing her double aortic arch. We’re prepared for this fight knowing our girl will battle anything that stands in her way. 👍🏼
First posted on the OliviaStrong Facebook page.