Noah has a brain tumor - part 2

At 7.30, April 24th, we received a call from Penn State Hershey's Pediatric Neurology group, informing us to come today and bring an overnight bag. Since we were still tired in bed and haven't told the news to Noah yet it took us a long time, about 2 hours, to get everything ready and leave. But first we woke up Noah to tell him the bad news. He took it very well. He did seem upset but within minutes he was playing with his sister in the living room.

We made it to Hershey's hope drive by 11.20 AM and had to wait a little to meet the the staff. But when the doctor came in and started describing what he saw. There was things he saw that concerned him that it may be cancerous, the opposite of mount nittany description. He described how he would have to remove it.  He believed it was Choroid Plexus Papilloma brain tumor, but would know more after the pathology tests.  He was a very great doctor interacting with Noah. He described how it needs to come out immediately, but it will take a couple days because of a follow-up MRI.  While he is describing this Noah is being a trooper, and dad got light headed.  I ended up laying down on the examining table while Noah sat in a chair.

After the staff setup the admission for Noah in the hospital we (7 adults, noah and Sydney  ) took him over.  The 7 adults were trying to keep their composure while Noah was skipping with excitement.  He was so excited to stay over and have an Xbox in his room.  Being the champ he is when it was time for an IV he had no troubles going and getting it done.  It took the nurse four times and he only teared up.

From the start of it we had great nurses.  The first nurse had Noah press the nurse button every time his IV pump started beeping. One of the aides would come and talk video games with Noah.  It was a special group of people. I felt that every nurse went out of her way to make sure Noah was comfortable, and each nurse had their own way of doing it.

The children's floor of Hershey was well setup and organized between staff, administrators and volunteers.  They had an end of one of the wings dedicated for a play area - called child's life, where the volunteers held two activities a day.  The first one we attended was visit PSU Men's basketball team, but before we got to walk down the hall way 2 of the players, head and assistant coach came into our room.  From the get go, you could tell the head coach was deeply into visiting the sick kids.  He reached out many of times to Noah to make sure he was getting extra attention.  After revealing that I worked near State College, he extended his personal email out for myself to contact him for anything.  Very touching!  After the coach and players moved on we went down the hall way to meet the other staff.  Noah was a little frustrated because they were shooting hoops, but he had an IV with wrap on his right (dominant) hand.  But after having one of the players help his mechanics he was able to make a shot.  We got to have the 5 players that came to the facility sign a towel and a ball, and Noah has been cherishing those items while in the hospital.

That all happened within the first couple hours after getting here and registering, we haven't even made it to the first night.  Of course before surgery Noah wanted daddy, mommy, and nanny to rotate sleeping with him in his room.  And it had to be in that order.  So I got to sleep on the bench seat they had designed for overnight guests.