WARNING..it's graphic & not funny graphic...

You know that show 'Leave it to Beaver', that little boy who always got into trouble and just couldn't live a nice calm life....we'll I'm claiming Cory as my 'Beaver'! We found this lump on Cory's face about 2 years ago, it was right when we moved to NV. We both just thought it was weird and that was that. Then in the last 8 months it really started to grow and Cory began the WAY annoying habit of playing with it. Pushing it up and down and wiggling this weird lump all over. So finally after Beaver, oh I mean Cory, being out numbered by family with his high blood pressure levels and this lump he went to the doctor. That doc referred him to an ENT specialist. The ENT had a fine needle aspiration ordered where they could get no kinds of samples from it because the lump was so hard, so we took the next step and moved onto surgery....

So here is Cory right before surgery and the view of the lump

 WARNING..... 

THIS IS NOT FOR THE WEAK STOMACHS.....

 The photo above is the area where the lump was extracted from. The little white string things are his main facial nerves that the doctor was so worried about. So what he did was he found the main nerves and then followed them and dissected as he went along. The surgery was estimaited to take 2-3h and he was in there for 3h 15m's (after the 3h mark I started to get a little stressed). The photo the the left is the actual lump that was extracted by his cheek. The doctor said it was the largest one that he'd every seen (he also thought that we were crazy that we wanted pictures and then wanted them emailed to us).

 This was the incision right after surgery. Cory's whole life has not done good with anesthesia. We talked to our Anesthesiologist and informed him of this, he on the other hand thought he was so good that Cory would have a perfect reaction on his watch and it was probably dumb people in the past. Cory and I both took the bet he wasn't going to wake up well and guess who won...if you want to call it that. But poor Cory came out pretty rough and that poor arrogant anesthetist had to eat his words. So because Beaver, oh silly me I mean Cory, had puked such a large amount the doc's wanted to keep him over night to make sure he didn't aspirate anything. So a night in the hospital he stayed. I was with him 'til they got him in his room, so 10pm, then headed home to the boys, who were being tended that WHOLE day by our amazing neighbors who we have adopted as our NV family :) So the next morning we got up and did our morning routine then headed to go get Cory. Cory was doing great and had informed me that he spent the day raiding the fridges and sneaking his 'goods' in his gown back to scarf down in his room 'cause he was supposed to be on a 'liquid diet'! Beaver!

 Once we got to the room the boys chilled and watched cartoons and we waited yet again for another 2h's for a chest x-ray, just to be sure and waste more money.... oops I mean to be sure he's all fine (you could tell he was doing great)!

They put a JP drain in his incision that looks a lot like a grenade that's been squeezed and plugged to keep the sucking constantly flowing. The nurse came in and showed us how to clean it and then did this stripping the line technique, that was the only time Cory felt pain....and had evil thoughts about that nurse. He wasn't very impressed with her carefulness and well we never used that technique at home! The other photo is how much his nerves were under stress, but that as time went on they would build back up.

 The surgery was on Wednesday and he took the rest of the week to chill and heal, which surprised us both and healed amazing. He had little pain until he wanted to sleep on that side of his head. So Beaver, crap I mean Cory survived and is doing great.
Then we kept wondering what this lump was. The doc's kept telling us that he had never seen anything like this before, but that he was sure all was fine....lines of crap I tell you. Anyway the pathology place here in Reno had no idea what this could be and shipped it off to Standford Pathology Unit. 3 days later we find out that the lump was a cancer call Acenic Cell Carcinoma :( Not a good news moment. Our ENT was very positive and him along with the Pathologist were very happy with the margins that they had on the lump. So the plan for now is wait. Wait to see if more lumps for and if that happens then we step into a different route....so we pray for now and hope this will be the last time Cory has to see Cancer's ugly face...and me too cause I didn't handle that very well at all! So that's our exciting story of 'Leave it to Beaver Cory!' Like everything in this life we are so grateful for supportive family and close friends that help us through these moments!

Loves to you all!