Diagnosis Day

Gracie and her siblings

Gracie with her bear "Diagnosis Day" cake. Her hair gets a little crazy after a hard day of playing, but she's still cute as can be!

Today is the one year anniversary of Gracie being diagnosed with bilateral retinoblastoma. Really this month has been full of notable days, and we've remembered each and every one of them (although not with an actual party, more just a passing mention). On August 9 I first saw the white mass in Gracie's eye, on August 18 we first saw the opthalmologist and heard the word cancer mentioned as a possibility, August 19 she had her first CT scan which indicated it most likely was cancer. But it wasn't until August 25 when we were back in Austin and saw Dr. O that the diagnosis of bilateral retinoblastoma was confirmed. No one even thought of it being bilateral until that day and we continued to hold out hope that it was something else even in the right eye until it was 100% confirmed otherwise. But this isn't a sad day for our family today. Don't get me wrong a year ago we were completely devastated by the news we received today. But today we consider this a day to celebrate. Had we never known about Gracie's tumor's we could never treat them. Because of today we knew what we were dealing with and we had a plan of attack. Without diagnosis day we might not have her here with us today, and if we did we'd be fighting an uphill battle. So we rejoice in the many blessings that are ours today and for the blessing of having each of our children in our lives today. We are so grateful for the many miracles which have been manifest in our lives over the last year. God has been so good to us. We celebrated today with an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbin's which Gracie got to pick out with her older sisters help. It was a fun night. I look forward to celebrating many August 25th's as well as May 29th's. They are a celebration of life for our family.

Stephanie