Ezra is such a goofball. He’s shy with people he doesn’t know well, but he is always making us laugh. He’s very smart, and he picks things up really quickly. He loves superheroes and Lightning McQueen. He loves playing Avengers with his brothers. His brothers love to play lego and duplo with him, and they love building together. Ezra loves reading, painting, and playing tag. He is that age when he wants to be independent, and he gets mad if he can’t do something by himself (whether it’s because we won’t let him or because he can’t physically do it yet).
Ezra started puking one Friday night in July, which wasn’t that unusual because kids pick up things like tummy bugs occasionally. But for whatever reason, mother’s intuition maybe, I had already decided to take him to urgent care in the morning. I can’t really explain why, but I just felt like we had to go. Saturday morning, Ezra was actually feeling a bit better, and he was playing with his big sister and wrestling on the bed. He fell backward and rolled a weird direction, and it looked like he had a lump on his tummy. I laid him down on the bed and pressed on his belly, and one side definitely felt firmer than the other. I called his pediatrician, and the nurse I spoke to reassured me he was most likely just constipated and that I was feeling poop in his gut. She told me I could bring him in if it would give me peace of mind. I had already decided I wanted him seen asap.
When we went in, the doctor immediately sent us to the local children’s hospital emergency room where they did ultrasounds and x-rays. They found a large mass on his kidney. Six days later, his kidney and tumor were removed. A few days later, he had his first of many chemotherapy treatments, and we were able to go home after twelve long days in the hospital.
That summer he definitely hadn’t been sleeping or eating well at all. Looking back, we know now what we were seeing were symptoms of the large tumor in his tummy.
He had a complete nephrectomy (kidney removal), and he had 19 rounds of chemo. He has scans every three months, and blood-work and other labs every 6 months. The stress and trauma his diagnosis has caused our family has been hard on us all. The financial strain, the stress of our marriage and being able to spend time focusing on our other kids, and the constant worry of relapse have all been struggles for us as well.
Hope session by Christine Hurla Photography | Facebook | Instagram