Since Feb 15, our family's life has drastically changed.  The night before, we — Ed and Tracee — had a lovely Valentine’s Day dinner. The next afternoon we found ourselves at Waldo County Emergency Department getting the news that Andy, our three-year-old son, had a brain tumor the size of his little fist. Our daycare provider Cheryl Milner is where this story of thanks begins.  Because Cheryl has cared for our children since they have been newborns, we trusted her instincts when she said Andy was not himself that day.

Once at the ED we received such caring, compassionate, and thorough care.  Although extremely busy, the ED doctor still took the time to listen carefully to what we had to say.  Although he was not expecting to find anything, he still ordered a CT scan just to rule out that there was nothing going on in Andy’s brain causing the slight balance issues Cheryl had noticed.

The radiologists doing the scan immediately saw a tumor the size of Andy's little fist growing in his brain.  Seeing the doctor enter our room in the ED, accompanied by a nurse carrying a box of tissues was scary, but never did we think we were going to be given the news, "we need to get your son immediately to a hospital where he can have an operation as soon as possible."

Andy was first sent to Eastern Maine Medical Cener in Bangor, and then transferred to Children's Hospital in Boston to have the tumor removed by a pediatric neurosurgeon. At that point we still did not know if his tumor was malignant or not, and were holding onto a small thread of hope that maybe it was not cancerous.  Andy was assigned to Dr. Alan Cohen, the No. 1 ranked pediatric neurosurgeon in the country.  Dr. Cohen was able to safely remove the tumor in a couple of hours.  A few hours after Andy woke up from surgery, he ate an entire personal pepperoni pizza!  We were so overjoyed that our little boy pulled through brain surgery with only a bandage on the back of his head to show for it.  Unfortunately, we were told that the tumor growing in Andy's head was cancer.

Next, we were connected to Maine Children Cancer Program, a part of Maine Medical Center.  There we learned what chemotherapy was going to be like, and how often we were likely going to be in the hospital.  However as much as we tried to prepare, it has still been hard to see our little boy so sick from drugs that are meant to make him better in the long run.

While in Boston, relatives and neighbors took care of Maggie, our five-year-old and her one-year-old brother, Jack, with no questions and with smiles on their faces.  Other family and friends stopped by our house regularly to clean, feed our cat, snow-blow the driveway, take the trash to the dump, and provide meals when needed.  And now, two months later, as Andy, with his mom by his side, goes through his second of six chemo treatments at Maine Med in Portland, our family and friends are still going strong supporting us.  

The Mason's hosted a benefit dinner for Andy on Saturday, April 13, out of sheer kindness.  We never imaged that so many people would show up to express their love and support for us; we left the dinner feeling an overwhelming sense of joy.  Andy brought together so many people, as well as bringing out the best in our community.  Due to the Internet, our family’s sense of community is rather large.  We have people from all over the world checking on Facebook to see how Andy is doing.

So many people have generously donated money to us.  With Andy in the hospital most of the time, Tracee hasn’t been able to work much.  Thanks to this generosity our mortgage and car payments can be taken care of, as well as all the travel and other expenses we have.

We are much appreciative of everyone who is helping, regardless of whether the help is financial, spiritual, with childcare, housework, whatever it may be; the fact is we have so many people looking out for us and thinking ahead for any possible anticipated need.  Not once have we felt alone while we have been trying to get Andy though this tough time.  From our whole family we give deep thanks and appreciation to all our community of friends and family both near and far.  We truly would not be functioning as well as we are without each and every one of you.

Tracee and Ed O'Brien live in Lincolnville.