Merrik Jensen

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Here is the story of how our cancer journey began. Merrik started to have diahreah in early August so after 2 weeks of this not remedying, we took him to his primary pediatrician. He had some labs conducted and was diagnosed with a bacterial infection in his intestines (CDIF). He was placed on antibiotics for 12 days, although this didn't seem to have a great impact, it did help a little.  Some time went by and he would have normal stools on and off and frankly we chalked it up to stopping breast feeding, teething, new foods etc. During the first  week of September Adam was rubbing Merriks tummy and felt a lump on his right side. We took him to the walk in and they thought he may have a hernia so sent us to the ER in hopes they'd complete an ultrasound. The ER did not feel this was necessary and sent us home stating it was just a normal lymph node. On 9/20 we had a GI appointment as the diahreah continued . An xray was completed that day an ultrasound was ordered for the following morning. The afternoon of 9/21 I received a call from the GI doc explaining it appeared Merrik had some inflamed lymph nodes in his abdomen which could be explained as normal inflimatiom from the diahreah or it could mean something else, such as lymphoma.  They made an appointment for us at Children's Hospital in Milwaukee (CHW) with a GI specialist for further testing and recommended we bring an overnight bag just in case. So, Friday 9/22 afternoon we arrived at CHW to meet with GI. After a brief meeting Merrik was admitted to the hospital for further testing. That evening Merrik had a CT scan to check out what was going on in his tummy. On the morning of Saturday 9/23 we received  the results which showed multiple tumors on the right  side of his abdomen pathing along his aorta artery and one on his lower vertebrae (T10) which were concerning for neuroblastoma. At that time were were moved to the Oncology floor and a biopsy was scheduled for Monday, 9/25.