Logan blessed our life on April 2, 2002. Born with Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome Logan immediately underwent many tests and scans, fortunately this ended up being a benefit to us in the long run as it turned out he had the first stages of Wilms tumors.

An ultrasound done on May 13, 02 seemed a little odd, but we were told not to worry yet because Logan’s kidneys were large and had many abnormalities that possibly would turn out to be nothing. (Since there is a less than 10% chance that a child with BWS would actually develop Wilms.)

The ultrasound was not repeated until July 24, 2002. We received the results the following Monday and to our dismay Logan did indeed have growths on his kidneys that were rapidly growing; in fact one lesion had grown to the size of a golf ball in my then three month old. Before starting treatment the doctors needed to perform a biopsy of the lesion to know what stage of Wilms they were dealing with. Logan was admitted August 12, 2002 to the Children’s Hospital for the surgery.

We had the results three days later; Logan had the first stages of Wilms and many nephrogenic rests. He needed chemotherapy treatment. Logan was still in the hospital at this point so we had a brovic (central line) inserted into his chest for chemotherapy administering. He started treatments one week post surgery.

Logan went in weekly for chemo, alternating between Vincristine which interferes with the cancer cell’s ability to divide. (When they cannot divide properly, cancer cells die.) And Dactinomycin (also called Actinomycin-D) which interferes with cancer cell DNA copying during cell division. Both of these medications were given through Logan’s central line over 1-2 minutes. To prevent any nausea Logan also received Ondansetron (Zofran) afterwards.

After a few months of treatments, a few CT scans and MRI’s later, it was discovered that the treatments were not working well. Another drug was introduced Doxorubicin (Adriamycin). This particular chemotherapy drug is much harsher, and can cause weakness of the heart muscle leading to abnormal heart function. This was a bit of a problem for us because at the time Logan had two holes in his heart and was already on high blood pressure medication. We were afraid to inflict any more problems on him. But we were reassured that with the dosage he would be given administered over an eight hour drip combined with regular echo’s, he would be closely watched.

Fortunately Logan is a trooper and did not experience many side effects from treatment, his hair became very thin, and he experienced, from what we could tell only a little “bone” pain, which we gave him codeine for. (Tylenol and other pain medications mask fevers, and fevers are the first sign of infection. When you are going through chemo your blood counts drop and you are unable to fight infections, for this reason it is very important to catch anything in the first stages.) Logan was only admitted to the hospital a couple of times with infections, but generally just had very low blood counts, so had to be isolated to the house with no visitors most of the time.

January 2003 rolled around and after yet another CT scan it was decided that Logan would have to have one of his kidneys removed. Almost all of the lesions had diminished, but the one that was exceptionally large was not reducing very much and would not be able to be removed on its own, but rather the entire kidney would have to be taken out. February 5, 2003 Logan was admitted for surgery, and we were home by the 9^th, Logan recovered amazingly fast. Once again I must say he is quite the little trooper. He continued with a few more chemo treatments to be on the safe side after surgery, and finally had his broviac taken out in June, 2003.

Currently every two months we have blood work done and alternate between MRI scans and ultrasounds as the follow-up. Logan has completed four follow-up’s to date with success, and I hope the trend will continue. I don’t think that Logan will remember much if anything at all of his battle, I feel that is a small saving grace.

Adrienne