A Pain In The Leg

For the past year or so, Rylan's had what we would call a "tender" spot on his leg. As parent's, we didn't think too much of it until Saturday Jan 1, 2010. Rylan's tender spot seemed almost "hyper sensitive" to the point that if anyone brushed up against it the pain would bring him almost to tears. There was also a definite "lump" on his leg which caused us a little concern.

We took him to our physician on Monday who ordered a Tuesday ultrasound which was inconclusive, that was followed by an X-Ray. Wednesday Rylan had an MRI.



The MRI finally showed something...

A "mass" which measured 6CM in length and approximately 4CM in diameter was easily seen in the image.

The Dr. was fairly certain that we were looking at a Sarcoma in the muscle. The images showed that it wasn't intruding into the bone, not any of the major arteries in Rylan's leg, which was good, but the fact that there was a tumor of some sort in our little boys leg was devastating to say the least.

Dr. Webber contacted a colleague of his at Primary Children's Medical Ctr. to get a referral for the best person to deal with the situation and made arrangements for us to meet with a specialist for orthopedic tumors in children on Tuesday the 12th.

We spent the next few days being a little on the "Freaked Out" side of things. Shelly's parents took the opportunity to get us all together and go out for our Post Holiday Dinner at Tepinyaki's. Thank you SOOO much for a wonderful dinner and afternoon/evening.

Tuesday the 12th could not get here fast enough! In the email we sent to friends and family here's what happened:

We met with Dr. Randall at Primary Children’s hospital today, and it is his opinion, based on the MRI and XRAYS we had done, that Rylan has a hemangioma, which is a tumor defined as “an abnormal buildup of blood vessels in the skin or internal organs.” He is fairly certain that this is a non-cancerous situation, but won’t know for certain until he operates.

Rylan is scheduled for a 2 ½ hour surgery next Thursday to remove the growth, at that time he’ll know for certain of what is there in Rylan’s leg muscle. The doctor will have a biopsy done at that time to be sure. It’s anticipated that he’ll spend one night in the hospital, followed by up to 6 weeks of therapy to return to pretty much normal. And, in all probability, he’ll be better than he was to begin with.

Dr. Randall is the L.B. Young Endowed Chair for Cancer Research, Director of Sarcoma Services, and a professor of Orthopaedics at the University of Utah, so Rylan is in the best care possible.

Rylan wanted to start this blog, honestly because we all figured this was going to be a longer journey than it now appears to be. For that, I am truly grateful! We'll keep updates on this site as he goes through surgery, recovery, and beyond.