MRI #3 - Shattered, but NOT Destroyed.

I've had a few hours to sit around and really chew on the results of yesterday's MRI. As I posted to those of you who are connected to me on Facebook, the news isn't good. It's cold, hard and unexpected. I feel like we let our guard down in one particular area and Satan swooped in and did his dirty work when we weren't looking.

In short, the main tumor remained stable, but the cancer has spread to his spinal column. There are now 5 3 to 5 mm tumors located along the nerve fibers beside the L2 vertebrae in his spine. In hindsight, when Dr. T took a look at last month's read, he said he could see the beginnings of them there after all.

So where does this leave us? Enmeshed in uncertainty of the absolute worst kind. What happens next hinges on the results of a spinal tap that will happen either tomorrow or Friday. We have a timeslot on Friday at 1:50 PM, but we're hoping for a cancellation that will get us in tomorrow instead, as results take 24 hours to come back and to be blunt, it would suck to have to sit on it all weekend long. If the fluid comes back clear of AT/RT cells, he'll continue forward with the original plan and have surgery on Tuesday to remove the main mass in his brain and then on to the transplant cycle. If cancer cells are present in the fluid, the team will have to meet to choose a different chemotherapy regimen to get the tumors in his spine under control, and the main tumor will remain surgically untouched for the time being. Obviously, our fervent prayer is that the spinal fluid will come back clear so we can continue to move forward with treatment.

Even then, however, we're still likely looking at two transplant cycles rather than just one, so we'll need to harvest more stem cells at some point, and the radiation therapy protocol will change dramatically, since ALL affected areas need to be hit.

I'm frustrated that I wasn't more focused on praying against the spread of the disease. Adam and I were both beyond shocked to get the report and I immediately chided myself for not remembering to pray over that regularly. Evil is sneaky: It finds our weak spots and enters if we're not careful.

Adam's mom came at 2 and picked up Abby, Logan and Isaac (Brady was a no-go because I couldn't pump enough milk; he thankfully wound up napping for several hours) so we could have a chance to just be together, reflect, talk, and hear what the oncologist had to say when he called.

I can't express how utterly devastated I was to hear the words "spots in his spinal column". After all my little sunshine has been through, after all of the pain and suffering our entire family has had to endure, now this? NOW? I was crushed, kicked, shattered, beaten... but somehow, not destroyed.

Of course I've spent most of the afternoon crying and have a pounding headache to show for it. But I'm not without hope, not even now when things look bad. When I felt the walls caving in, I went in search of a Bible, prayed for encouragement, for God to speak to me in my time of desperation and pain -- torture, really -- and I flipped the Good Book open. It landed in the middle of Acts 5. And as blessings would have it, my eye immediately settled on the subhead to a particular story on the page:

The Apostles Heal Many People.

First I laughed, then I cried a little more, because truly, God meets you when you seek. And He gave me perfect encouragement despite the gravity of our circumstances.

That's not to say that I'm not scared, because I most certainly am. I'm terrified. I'm more on edge than I've ever been over the course of my 33 years. But I'm also not without hope. Things haven't gone as we'd prayed they would, but God is still in the business of miracles. I said long ago that I felt as if this would get very, very scary before it would truly get better. I've also always said -- if only to myself -- that I want this to be a story of redemption and a story of miracles. A testament to the awesome power of God. Miracles, I believe, are only truly miraculous if things look horribly bleak before they happen. Bad circumstances give God the chance to shine and to bring glory to His own name. It may be selfish of me, but I think this has become the ideal miracle-making situation.

I will doggedly continue to pray for my sunshine's complete and total healing on this side of heaven. A better person might demurely pray 'not my will but Yours be done', but I'm going to be real here: I want my Logan-ey to survive. I want his survival to be a testament to the greatness of God, to the power of prayer and to the reality that miracles really do happen in this broken, fallen world. But most of all, because I love him with such a fierceness and intensity and he's such a part of my own being that I can't imagine life without his smile, his dancing, his I Love Yous and most basic of all, his presence. He's an integral, essential, invaluable and irreplaceable member of our family. And I refuse to give him up without a fight. I refuse to let evil win. And I plan to aggressively, stubbornly and continually plead my case to God for his survival.

Please keep praying for Logan's healing. Pray that God will truly hear and respond to our prayers and pray that a miracle will happen. If you're here reading and can figure out how to post, let me know that you've read this and will join me in ramping up the intercession. Thank you for your support and your prayers. They mean more than I could ever express.