“Evan continues to make great progress. He actually left his hospital room today and was taken for a ride in his sister’s stroller. He is now feeling well enough to enjoy all of the attention that is being showered upon him by the nurses, parents and grandparents. He is on a normal diet and is, of course, being given pretty much anything that he wants by several unnamed sources, which is ok. Considering what this kid has been through, he has entitled to some pampering.

We now believe that he will be discharged this week, perhaps as early as tomorrow or Thursday. It will be GREAT to have everyone home again. UCLA is wonderful but it ain’t like home.”

— Grandpa M. Holland —

The Lab results from Evan’s biopsy came back negative today! That’s good news, which means that he might be released within the next 4 days.

Pictures to come….

“After what I would characterize as the toughest night Evan has ever had in a hospital this evening has been a complete turn around.

Evan is no longer in pain and has rested comfortably most of the evening. He’s becoming more awake and aware of his surroundings – feeling his blanket, running his toes over the guard rail, feeling the bandage on his belly etc.

I wish I could say this equates to more sleep on “team UCLA’s” part but I’m too worried about him ripping the NG tube out of his nose (one of the lovely occurrences that happened last night) but I can’t complain. Lack of sleep to keep an eye on him is far better than lack of sleep and watching him in pain.”

– Evan’s Father

Evan went in to surgery around 2pm after a hold from a 12pm time. He had two nodules removed from the liver which ended up (so far as they can tell) being just extra liver cells that have clumped together. They are from first impression to be benign masses, but they are going to do further tests. The doctor said that they didn’t have to use cadaver abdominal muscles to close Evan because there was so much herniation that they had enough left to use his own, which isn’t normally the case.

“It was like Extreme Make Over, but with Evan” – Doctor

So in all they still have to do the testing on the lumps that were removed. It was a good thing I gave Evan an over sized liver piece, because they had to take a little with one of the nodules. We’re looking at a 10-14 day hospital stay depending, and then the physical recovery, which will be hard for Evan as he’s just turned 2 year’s old, but as big as some 3 and 4 year olds and he’s gonna want to move around!

So in all, a stressful day of stop and go with the appointment for surgery and waiting to find out the details. I did get to see them remove the catheter, brought back painful memories, blah…. but he’s humming and moaning and opening his eyes every so often which is good.

It was a cold, cold day at the park, but everyone made the best of it. Evan ran around playing like a little care free boy going down the slides on his own and exploring the park. Here are a few photo’s that I was able to get, but there will be more to come!

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They have recently found two nodules around Evan’s liver. The test results from having a biopsy have come back inconclusive, so the next step is to have his chest cavity opened up again, because making a small incision is dangerous with him not having any abdominal muscles to hold everything in place and protect against the incision. So now he is home for the weekend and is scheduled to return to UCLA on Tuesday to go in for another major surgery in which the nodules will be removed, cadaver abdominal muscles will be grafted in so he won’t have the football stomach.

On top of that, Friday was his birthday. Evan’s a big 2 years old now. The best part about all this is that since the doctors scheduling didn’t work out that Evan got to celebrate his birthday and will be able to run around in the park for his party before he’s out of commission for a little while till his large incision heals and learns to use his abdominal muscles.

So Happy Birthday EVAN! Pictures to come after the party on Saturday.