One year ago today I heard one of the worst news you could hear as a mother "Your child has cancer"  I just sat and bawled in that emergency room as my son layed on a gurney too sick too move.  I just couldnt believe that he had cancer flowing throughout his little body, but in my heart I knew it was true.  This was the answer to my weeks of knowing something was just not right with him.  At that moment everything made sense.  The mysterious bruising all over, the swelling, not being able to walk and asking my why I was hurting him all the time with just simply getting him out of his carseat.  So many thoughts ran through my head but I could never have imagined what lay ahead for my precious boy in the year to come, especially those first four and a half months.  We were admitted that night to the ImmunoCompromised Unit.  As I walked through those doors another wave of emotion and reality hit as I saw little bald children hooked up to IV poles playing in the playroom.   The next day the diagnosis was set in stone when they told me what type of Leukemia he had.  Pre B cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.  He went into surgery that day to place a port in his chest that went directly into his heart, so they could pump poison throughout his body to kill those horrible cancer cells.  We were told he would stay there for about a week and then we would be able to do the rest of his three and a half years of treatment outpatient.  That one week turned into 4 1/2 months, three of which were spent in the ICU, and half of the time in the ICU was spent on life support. Within a couple weeks Skyler developed tumor lysis that completely shut down his kidneys and he was put on dialysis for renal failure.  He also developed an invasive fungal infection that took over his whole body which led to failure of five organ systems.  It started out in his sinuses and he went through countless surgeries to try and scrape it out.  Eventually the surgeon stopped operating and told us there was nothing more he could do, to get it all out would leave his face completely disfigured.  Each time an organ fails it decreases your chance of survival, so with five organ systems that had failed it decreased his chance by alot.  I was told later that no one thought he would ever get off the ventilator because most kids that sick dont survive.  I still to this day have flash backs to the most horrific night of my life when they told me to say my goodbyes because he probably wouldnt survive the next couple of days or maybe even the night.  Family was called and gathered around while I sat crying holding his warm little foot wondering how I could possibly say goodbye to the one person I love more than anything in the whole world, he is my world.  I wished with everything in me that I could trade places with him.  Skyler surprised everyone though and held on.  He is such a fighter, a hero.  He survived months of dialysis, six weeks completely sedated and on the ventilator with a room full of machines keeping him alive.  He had his spleen removed, fifteen different lines placed to pump the life saving chemo, other medicines, blood and platelets into him.   He had well over a hundred platelet and blood transfusions.  At one point they actually ran out of places to place a line that they ended up putting one behind his knee.  He was covered head to toe with tubes putting stuff into and sucking stuff out of him.
I wouldnt wish upon my worst enemy the things I saw done to my son.  I have horrible flash backs and nightmares to this day.  I have felt emotions that I never want to experience again in my lifetime. 

 Along with so much pain and heartache that  this past year has brought, there has also been so much good as well as weird as that seems.  I got to experience the amazing joy of seeing my son open his eyes again for the first time.  I got to experience his first drink, the first time he talked and sat up and even walked again for the first time when these tasks once seemed impossible.  I got to experience the selfless service of others.  People I didnt even know helped carry me through days when I didnt know how I could go on.  I learned just how lucky I am to have the best family in the world.  My mom spent six weeks sleeping in a rocking chair without leaving my side.  My dad came up everyday.  And my brothers and sisters and extended family were there whenever I needed them.  I have learned things about myself that I didnt know before.  I learned that I am stronger than I thought I was and learned what kind of person I want to be from being on the receiving end of such wonderful acts of kindness.  I have learned to never take the little things for granted because you never know when those might be taken away from you. 

I still cant believe it has been one year.  It seems like a lifetime ago that my world was turned upside down but then again it went by so fast.  Thank you so much for all the love and support that you have shown me and Skyler.  I definitely couldnt have survived this last year without it.  Thank you for taking the time to read about my son and being apart of this cancer journey with us. 

"Life isnt about weathering the storm, its about learning to dance in the rain."

This is Skyler a week or two after diagnosis.  He went into renal failure so they placed the dialysis catheter you see sticking out of his neck.

This is after they found the fungal infection.  They had to remove his central line and dialysis catheter that were infected by the fungus.  The bruising on his neck is from the line removal.  He also got severe burns from the EKG patches.  He is also starting to swell from his kidneys not working

 
This is after they placed another dialysis catheter.  He gained over 10 pounds in one week from retaining so much fluid.  Those red lines are his blood going out of his body, getting "cleaned" and going back in.  I about passed out the first time I saw the blood start coming out and going through the machine.

The fungal infection spread to his lungs along with fluid making it difficult for him to breath.  The placed him on the bi-pap for support.

It got to the point where he couldnt breath on his own so they had to intubate him so a machine could breathe for him.  They also had to place a new dialysis catheter.  He has had five different dialysis catheters

He is so swollen and bruised from being in renal failure and having low platelets.  He also started turning yellow from his liver shutting down.  He has had a total of 6 chest tubes also to drain fluid from his lungs

Those are pressure sores on his face that he received from the different bi-pap masks before intubation.  He also had a very bad pressure sore on his bum from not being turned when he was so swollen.

   These are all the machines that kept Skyler alive for three months.  It was a very noisy room

Skyler was so fragile that it took alot of people to lift and move him.  He was so fragile that even I couldnt hold him.  It was so hard not being able to hold my own son for months.  He was in isolation alot of the time due to all his infections, that is why they are wearing those yellow gowns

  This was right before they took hom down to remove his spleen.  And yet again another dialysis catheter

Skyler spent many holidays in the hospital

Halloween

Thanksgiving

Christmas

New Years

And Easter

It has been quite the year, but we made it...Skyler made it.  And here he is today my little superhero and one heck of a fighter!

I love you Skyler!