Aiden's Army

Meet the Welling Family...

Aiden's been on our radar for a while, we've been sending him cards and praying for him. Here is his story...

Aiden's journey began in late August when his parents noticed a hard lump on his stomach. They decided to have it checked out by Aiden's pediatrician. An initial scan done by Aiden's doctor showed a large mass in Aiden's abdomen. Aiden was immediately sent to Nationwide Children's Hospital for further testing.

On August 27, 2012, Aiden was diagnosed with stage 4 Neuroblastoma. In addition to the tumors found in his abdomen, the doctors found lesions, during a cat scan, on the outside of several bones surrounding his abdomen. However, Aiden's bone marrow came out clean-so doctors will be able to remove bone marrow and harvest it so that Aiden can have his own new, healthy bone marrow injected into his system after treatment.

After the initial diagnosis, additional bone scans were needed to find out if the cancer had traveled to any other parts of Aiden's body. On August 30th, Aiden's bone scans came back clean! The previous lesions found in the initial cat scan had not shown up!

Shortly after Aiden's diagnosis and bone scans, a treatment plan was established and Aiden's chemo treatment started on September 2nd. The treatment schedule will be long and aggressive. However, with all the love, support and prayers offered by family and friends we can help Aiden and the rest of the Welling family through this trying time.

After a number of ups and downs trying to get treatment approved and finally getting someone to agree to treat him, Aiden's battle began. He has had a number of trials which have been, it seems, harder on his mom than him.

Here is the most recent update from his CaringBridge page...

Aiden has gotten through 5 out of 10 radiation treatments and 2 out of 5 days of chemo. He wasn't feeling too great last week and over the weekend, but seems to be doing better in the last two days. He has been able to stay awake for most of the radiation treatments. The first treatment was very long and he had a really hard time. He was anxious and kept moving, which caused the session to be longer. The next two sessions were really quick (just a few minutes) and were still kind of rough to get through. Today was another long session and we agreed that using sedation would probably be for the best. He actually clapped and smiled when he realized they were going to give him "sleepy juice." We are going to plan to do all of the short sessions without sedation, and one more long session with (unless he decides otherwise).

Thanks to the Welling family for the opportunity to Share the Journey with them and be a part of their encouragement team!