Results from the biopsy

Dear friends and family

We met with our neuro-oncologist today and she told us that we are dealing with an aggressive tumor called anaplastic astrocytoma. It does not appear to originate from his brain stem but from his cerebellum and is now infiltrating his brainstem. The slides from the biopsy showed normal brain tissue wrapped up with the tumor tissue meaning that further surgical removal would be severely detrimental to Joe's ability to walk, talk, function, and could in fact kill him. This is an extraordinarily rare form of pediatric cancer and the location of his tumor is even more rare. You can read all about it at this site which was the first one that came up after googling "anaplastic astrocytoma".

Right now the only treatment is radiation therapy but that will not start for 2-3 weeks until he fully recovers from the surgery. There are some other chemo agents that we may decide to use if our team thinks they might be beneficial. We feel very confident in our doctor and she is doing everything she can for Joseph. However, the prognosis is not too good. You can read all about it yourselves and given this audience, I know most will immediately. But for now, we are going to focus on enjoying every day that God has given us with Joe, hoping and praying for the best, but preparing for anything.

We have many difficult decisions ahead. We ask that you continue to pray for Joe P. and for wisdom as we try to do what is best for him. Again, we are in awe of how many people are supporting us with prayer, food, babysitting, comments, etc. Even though this is an unbelievably horrible situation, we defintely feel God's presence and there is no way that we could go through this without him and without you all.

Thanks,
Allen, Gillian, Joseph, and Holly