Good news, bad news

So we've gotten some good news and some bad news over the last few days.

Good news first, Ella is recovering from her surgery fantastically. She is disconnected from everything but her IVs and today was removed from "nothing by mouth" status to being able to eat and drink whatever she can tolerate. Also, the bone marrow sample that was taken during her surgery was clear of cancer.

The bad news... First of all, during the surgery, a couple of Ella's lymph nodes were removed. They tested these lymph nodes for cancer, and one of them had it. Unfortunately, it was far enough away in her body that it was something to be concerned about (basically, Neuroblastoma -- that is definitely the cancer she has -- is categorized in three categories - low risk, intermediate risk, and high risk. The presence in her lymph node was enough to raise her to intermediate risk). On Friday we got some more information, and that was that her tumor had a heightened level of what's called an N-Myc or MYCN gene. This is a gene that everyone has in their bodies, but when it is in a tumor, and in a heightened amount, it means that the tumor is very aggressive, and classifies Ella's cancer as a high risk. I won't post the numbers here as far as survival rates and such, they're easy enough to google, and I don't want anyone who doesn't want to see them to have to.

I guess that's it for now, we've gotten some information as far as how her treatments will go, and I will post about that soon.