Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I cannot fully express how incredibly grateful I am to my Father in Heaven today.

I am grateful for all the wonderful people He has placed in my life and the lives of our family who have included our sweet Olivia in their prayers, prayer circles, prayer rolls, lighting prayer candles, fasting, and thousands of silent prayers sent heavenwards by many since hearing about what we were facing with Olivia. I have been truly astounded at the out-pouring of love for our darling girl and our family. There are multitudes of amazing people in the world who perform small acts of service that are truly heroic.

What was I hoping for with all these collective prayers for Olivia?

I have known for a long time that she isn't going to be "cured." This is a genetic disorder which is rooted in her chromosomes and DNA. My own prayers and hopes have been to know the right decisions to make for her care as different signs and symptoms have arisen, and so that her doctors would make sound decisions as well. I have been troubled by how fast this has been happening. I wanted to be able to do more of *something* before committing to surgery and chemo, but didn't know what else could be done.

So what has happened?

Yesterday, Kurt and I spent a couple hours talking with Olivia's genetic specialist, who is an amazing doctor, and who did a number of things we have been wishing for since we started on this path a couple weeks ago (such as showing us pictures from her Nov 2009 MRI compared with the May 2010 MRI). In the end, he said that based on the information we have - growth of optic pathway tumors and dramatic loss of vision - he would recommend starting Olivia on the chemotherapy. Not what any parent wants to do, but we felt comfortable making that decision based on the information we had.

This morning I followed up with oncology and made sure everything was scheduled - a hearing test today following Olivia's eye exam, the port surgery was scheduled for next Wednesday and Olivia would be admitted to the hospital following the surgery. I was thinking of what needed to be done- child care for the other kids, what days we might need meals, letting my Mom know we wouldn't be there for my brother's mission homecoming, etc., but postponed doing them. It was already time to load up kids, drop them off, and head to the hospital with Olivia.

I didn't go to Olivia's eye exam expecting anything to change.

But that's what happened.

In February, Olivia's eye exam results were that her left eye was seeing 20/30 and her right eye was 20/25. A couple weeks ago the results were that her left eye was 20/80 and her right eye was 20/40. It was the large jump of her left eye that was alarming and resulted in the MRI, the following doctor visits, and deciding to do chemotherapy. Today, her eye exam results were 20/40 for the left eye and 20/30 for the right.

This is still showing a slight decrease in her visual acuity, however, the wide range of the eye exam results over these 3 visits caused the eye doctor to feel like we shouldn't do the surgery or start chemotherapy next week. In a month we will take Olivia in for another MRI and another eye exam, and re-evaluate where she is.

And its entirely possible/likely that we will come to the same conclusion that Olivia needs to do chemotherapy. But I am relieved that we have the time and are taking the time to get a better idea of what her vision is (eye exams and 3 year olds are tricky business), and to make sure the chemotherapy is needed before rushing into it.

I really feel like the prayers for Olivia have made a difference. So THANK YOU everyone!