Prayers for a little relative, Jacob

[Heather Lombardo]

Please pray for Jacob (8yo), a nephew on my husbands side. It was discovered this week that Jacob has a brain tumor and things are moving right along. He will be having surgery today at 12:30. Please keep him, his parents and little sister in your prayers and pray that Jacob is cancer free.

Thank you so much.

[S Jensen]

I will be praying for him and his parents and sister too!

Sara

[DeeDee Ortiz]

Sending prayers

[Tasha Nicholls]

How's Jacob doing, Heather?

[Jen Eagan]

I want to know too. This makes me so sad. It's hard enough dealing with sick babies- but imagining one of my older kids going through it, when you have to explain things to them... how awful.

[Heather Lombardo]

I unfortunately don't know how he is yet. I spoke with my mother in law late last night. His surgery started a few hours later schedulued and my brother in law had not called yet to let anyone know if he was out of surgery. They estimated an at least 3 hour surgery.

I cannot even imagine how scary this is for his mom and dad. I know we are all just praying it's not cancer.

Hopefully I will hear something soon.

I know his parents appreciate all the prayers. Thank you.

[Rayna']

praying!!!

[LoraRenshaw]

Heather, I am also praying! Please keep us posted and let us know how things are.
Blessing your way...Lora Renshaw

[Brooke]

Hi Heather,

I'm so sorry to hear of this bad news for your nephew. Hopefully, though it will turn out with good news. I'll be praying for them and you.

Brooke

[Heather Lombardo]

Sorry it took so long to update, we just completed a training with a few new members. :) It's been a busy morning.

Jacob is so far so good I guess. He came out of surgery fine and when the nurses asked his pain level on a scale from 1-10 he said 2! ;)
Still waiting on the test results though. They will be back tomorrow or Saturday.

[Amber Schmidt]

Well that is a little relief. At least he is not in Pain while they are waiting. Praying for good news!

[B Storm]

Praying!!!!

[Tammy]

Sending thoughts and prayers for Jacob. Praying for a very positive outcome.
This just breaks my heart... what a little trooper. And to think of all the things we as ADULTS complain about... and then you hear of amazing kids like this.

[S Jensen]

Wow, what a strong little boy. I hope they stay on top of the pain meds and keep his pain level low for him. Hopefully the results will be back tomorrow and will be the best news possible.

Sara

[marylouise]

Heather, sending prayers your way
Hugs

[Heather Lombardo]

Jacob has Cancer....... :( :( I'm just sick for his parents and my brother-in-law. My mother-in-law spoke with my husband a little while ago and told him that Jacob's doctors said his chance of survival was 75%. Is this good? It's obviously better than 25 % but I just don't know. I don't know anything about this other than my brother's longtime fiance' died from cancer and it really was horrible watching her have to go through everything she did. I can't imagine watching my child go through the treatments and surgeries. This has to be so scary for Jacob. He's old enough to know there is something very wrong. I'll continue this thread and update as things go on. Just please keep Jacob and his mom, dad and little sister in your prayers.

Thanks so much!

[marylouise]

Heather, I'm so sorry. I'll keep them in my prayers, and offer Mass up for him in the morning. Is there an address that we can send him cards?
Hugs

[Lindzy Foster]

i am so sorry...please do let us know if there is somewhere we can send him cards or i would love to send him something to keep his spirits up while he starts treatment......praying for him and you and the whole family.....
Lindzy

[Heather Lombardo]

Thank you all for your prayers for Jacob. I will try and get a good estimate about how long he will be in the hospital. I may just end up private messaging you with his home address for those that expressed the desire to send him a card. That is very sweet. Thank you again.!

[S Jensen]

Oh, how devastating that he has cancer! What did they say about the surgery, were they able to get most of the tumor or all of it that they could see? You should try and take pictures as soon as possible to begin documenting his journey if you can. They change so much while on chemo and radiation (I don't know how much you know about cancer, please forgive me if I sound like I'm talking down to you). They can swell up from what looks like a healthy in shape child to someone who looks as if they are very obese...though they hold the majority of the noticeable swelling in their faces it seems. Just to give you some numbers that might give you more hope. At least for me, looking at the big picture sometimes helps instead of looking at the scary little piece of the picture.

Nationwide they feel there will be about 10,400 new cancer cases in 2007 with children age 0-14. From that number they expect, about 1545 deaths. About 1/3 (ie., 515) are due to Leukemia. That leaves 1,030 NATIONWIDE to be divided not just between brain tumors but also other nervous system cancers, non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, Hodgkin Lymphoma, Wilms tumors, etc.. To me anyway, that makes the odds seem better and the cancer more fightable than simply saying 75%. I know that cancer is not straightforward and it is an individual thing but fighting and fighting hard, not giving up is important. I don't know about your nephew but I have an easier time fighting for something that has a more positive outcome possibility than I do for one where the negative is stressed.

Sara

[Jen Eagan]

Heather- my heart goes out to the whole family. I know how scared they are feeling right now. It's been almost exactly a year since my cousin's daughter Samantha was diagnosed with Wilms tumor, stage IV- hers had spread from her kidney to her lungs, diaphragm and liver. She had 4 large tumors (one of which was the size of a football, 3 were like golf balls) and her liver was covered with so many lesions they couldn't count. I don't even know how many rounds of chemo and how many surgeries she went through. A year ago we were so frightened, not sure if Sam was going to be still with us this year. Around Christmas she had her final chemo and in January she had 70% of her liver removed (the final major surgery). Now she has 14 days of radiation (10 days left!) and then we wait for scans that show NED (no evidence of disease). They are going to go through a lot of highs and lows where sometimes a fever is going to be enough to make them panic, and a trip to the bathroom is going to be enough to make them celebrate.
If you're in the "what can I do to help" mode, one thing that my cousin has loved was puzzles. She has this friend who trades puzzles with her- when she's in the hospital, every week or so she'll get a new puzzle. It's something to pass the time...

Another thing that helped was we started a Relay for Life team to honor Sam, we had an awesome turnout and everyone wanted to see her. This year we are doing it again and they want her to be the speaker for the survivors lap.

Also- if they aren't familiar with Caringbridge- it's a website they can make for Jacob to keep family and friends updated- as well as make new friends and broaden the prayers. Just another thought. I've made them for a few people, Sam, a friend's daughter who was in the NICU, one of my T-18 survivor families. If you feel like you want to do something, you could maybe do that.

I am so sad to hear that yet another family has been attacked by the cancer monster. It breaks my heart, really. I am so sorry. :(

[Heather Lombardo]

Sara & Jen,

Thanks for the information. From what we were told the doctors were able to get the entire tumor at the last surgery. The said it was easy to get to and was at the surface of the brain. He will start with 6 rounds of chemo very soon. Sara, I do know what you mean by swelling. ( and no, you were not talking down to me, the statistics you gave were great!) My brother's fiance' was a gorgeous girl and her face got quite pudgy from the meds. It was shocking that meds could do that.

I asked my husband if I should volunteer to do photography for Jacob right before the surgery but my husband said it might scare them and they may think that we think Jacob is going to die..... I can understand where he is coming from and at the time I was a bit upset with him and his preference to discard the offer because it really would have been nice for the parents to have more professional photographs of him before his head was shaved completely and before he started feeling awful. My guess is that Jacob's mother will call and get in touch with me at some point and we can discuss photography then.

For those that are photographers and do the NILMDTS sessions also, do you ever feel like you may be looked at as the family member with a black cloud hanging over your head or a stigma attached to this type of service? I think that's also where my husband may have been going with the "please don't offer" theory....

And Jen, my guess is that the Caring Bridge site will start at some point very soon. We have a lot of relatives all over the place. One of Jacob's favorite uncles is stationed in Hawaii. The hospitals here are pretty good about promoting caringbridge.

[S Jensen]

I think I would just offer to document his fight through cancer and beyond and stress the beyond so that he can look back when he's 18 and remember and show his girlfriend what he went through. :) I'm glad you didn't feel I was talking down to you. I never know how much someone knows and one of my BIGGEST pet peeves is when someone talks to me like I'm an idiot and since I HATE that, I worry I might come across as that way when I'm sharing info.

I have an aunt that is a hospice nurse. She was working in the hospital in oncology and just felt it wasn't for her. She just found out today when I showed her a couple pictures from my session I did yesterday, that I also do the hospice stuff. She didn't look at it as anything negative she was beyond thrilled and said that she may have 2 families for me (not her patients, but she knows of them, one is an 18 month old girl and she doesn't know anything about the other child just that he/she won't be here long). I also do maternity and infant photography (well, and kids and seniors and pretty much anything right now, I don't advertise and won't till my youngest is in school and when I get busy then I'll start being more selective but I have enough to do right now as it is.), not just the NILMDTS and ACPCG stuff so that might lighten the black cloud. It actually has made some people decide to use me as a photographer over another (though my prices are a big part of that too) since they know that I set aside 1/2 of all my profits to use for this type of work.

Sara

[tinantravis]

Heather-
Wow, I had no idea. Sending all my love and prayers (as always for you!) -- Keep us updated.
Tina