Mighty Man Will Lanicek

This may be the longest post of all time. It has been an extremely long six days. On Monday night Will threw up, nothing out of the ordinary for a baby. I called the night nurse at our pediatrician’s office because if you know me you know I am a borderline hypochondriac. The night nurse told us to give him Pedialyte and if it continued to call in the morning. Well, it continued. Will could not sleep and couldn’t keep anything down. It had been 12 hours since he was able to keep anything down so I suggested Billy take him to urgent care since it opened before the doctor’s office. I went to work. I know God intervened here because normally with my anxiety I would have had to take Will or sit in the car while Billy took him in, I would have never just gone to work. God knew Billy could handle this better than I could.

Fast forward, Billy is at urgent care they rule out many things and do an x-ray just in case. I thank God daily the urgent care doctor decided to do an x-ray. The x-ray showed a mass. Keep in mind I am texting Billy like crazy this whole time and he is telling me but not telling me what’s going on. The urgent care doctor sends Billy and Will to the Emergency Room. I can’t even remember what happened in the emergency room. I just remember Billy texting me or calling me and saying there was a tumor on Will’s liver. I rushed out of work and headed to the hospital while hysterically trying to keep myself together. Oh, and while at a stoplight I rolled into the back of a motorcycle (insert palm to face emoji) The guy sped off and wouldn’t pull over so I assume he and his motorcycle are ok.

Once at the ER everything happened so fast, scans, labs, and then we were admitted to Oncology. We were told the tumor was most likely hepatoblastoma, liver cancer. The first night was hard, real hard. We had the best nurse ever, we’ve really had the best care the entire time. That night the nurse happened to be a childhood cancer survivor herself (Thank you God for placing her with us).

Wednesday we had a biopsy, a feeding tube placed and a port placed in Will’s chest. Thursday we waited. Thursday night was my first night alone here. Billy had to leave due to covid guidelines, only one of us can be here at a time. We have been doing the switch each day.

Friday Billy was here and I had gone home to try and sleep. The biopsy results hadn’t come back early afternoon but came back that evening. We opted into a clinical trial and if you’ve been following on Facebook I begged and requested prayers that we would get into the trial and get the trial drug. God answered our and your prayers! We got the trial drug. I felt guilty for being excited that my son was starting chemo and getting a poison injected into him.

Somewhere in the span of Tuesday through Friday Will had three blood transfusions. When the surgeon biopsied the tumor he found internal bleeding and was able to clean it up and apply a clotting agent.

Saturday morning Will was swollen and retaining fluids from the pre-chemo stuff they had to do. They have to give him lots of fluids because the chemo could damage his kidneys. He was on pain meds the majority of the day.

Today. Blood pressure is high and he has been prescribed blood pressure medicine. He is on pain medicine and has slept the majority of the day. He is able to “eat” through his feeding tube that they have continuously running very slow. He is off oxygen. I’ve always heard when you rest your body heals, so I know his little body is doing a lot of healing today.

I told y’all this was going to be a long post. I left a lot of details out but gave you all the big stuff. There has been a lot happen to our six month old in the last six days.

We have prayed more in the last six days than I think we have ever prayed in our lives. I have talked to all the angles I know. I have begged to changes places with him. Out of this terrible situation, I have become closer to God than I have ever been. I have seen the good in people I don’t even know pray for our baby. We are beyond grateful for the love, support, and prayers. We have the greatest support system and will be forever in debt to all the prayer warriors rallying for our baby.

We know this is going to be a long road and it’s not going to be easy. However, we also know we have an amazing support system and Will has a rally of people praying for him. Please continue praying for our baby and all the children who are in the fight with him.

Side note: many have asked what you can do to help. We just need all the prayers for our baby Will.