Friday, February 27, 2009

Riley Updates

I know many of you are thinking of and praying for my niece Riley and her family. Here's the latest...

Riley is 17 months old and has been having reflux-type issues for many months. An MRI on Thursday revealed a mass on Riley's brainstem that has likely been causing that. She was then transferred to the children's hospital at Stanford where she will be under the care of one of country's best pediatric neurosurgeons.

This morning's spinal MRI didn't reveal anything new, the rest of the spine is clear. Amy and I (and my dad) were able to sit in with Jaron and Jenni as they met with the nuerosurgeon. Riley will have surgery on Monday to remove the 3cm tumor that is attached to her brainstem. The tumor is located in a critical area but the Doc has done thousands of similar surgeries and he said the goal will be to remove 90% of the tumor. It can't be fully removed because it is attached to the brain stem and the will avoid that. However, he said that most of the time, if that much of it can be removed then the tumor will hopefully go dormant. The surgery will take most of the day on Monday.

At this point, my family and I are planning to stay until at least Tuesday.

Check back here for updates or go over to Jaron & Jenni's blog... http://jjaolson.blogspot.com/