Ava had already been through significant poking the last two days and had existing trauma leftover from her appendix rupture incident of 2016, which included a 1-week stay in the hospital. This midnight bloodwork was extremely unpleasant and we were beside ourselves with fear. At this point, we still didn't know what was going on, and felt the urgency behind the orders to gather blood samples upon arrival. Ava was a trooper. At 2 am, we finally got to fall into beds.
Thursday morning, the whirlwind resumed immediately. We were introduced to many people at St. Jude - our Care Team. It was a lot of people, all at once. Everyone was kind and gentle, but it was overwhelming. Our oncologist fellow came to speak to us and for the first time, the language of "if...treatment" became "when....treatment." We finally came to understand that one of the blood samples from the previous night indicated a certain type of tumor. This was a turning point, when the hope for benign was dissipated.
The rest of the day, we went to appointments with various members of Ava's Care Team. During this craziness, Ava was incredible. She was fierce, and she was brave. There were more pokes, and she recovered and was her spunky, sassy, fun-loving self. For those of you that know her, it will be no surprise that she was ok with all the attention. Holly pulled her around in a wagon, and she received gifts at just about every stop - coloring books, squishies, a backpack full of goodies...
We went to bed exhausted, confused, and terrified. The St. Jude complex felt like a bizarre alternate universe that could not possibly a real thing we were experiencing. That our daughter had a softball-sized tumor in her lower abdomen seemed impossible.
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