From our CaringBridge site:
Tuesday morning, April 5, 2011, the shoe we thought that rested neatly in the closet of our minds decided to drop. An ER doctor told us Brady has a mass in his brain and it's not small. My healthy boy who all this time we thought had made it out of his bumpy entry into the world virtually unscathed is now on an operating table in a Cook Children's OR having brain surgery to remove a mass the size of a baseball in his brain.
This all started about 4 weeks ago when Brady started vomitting intermittently every couple of days and complaining of headaches. He also had allergies, like the rest of us, so we monitored it for about a week. After that we took him to see his pediatrician because we were worried it was something else. Since his reflexes were good and he wasn't displaying any other signs or symptoms to send up red flags she thought it was more just related to allergies. She told us to watch for waking up in the middle of the night from a headache, uncoordination or other things similar that would be odd. None of these things had happened so we continued to watch him. This lasted for about a week longer but he still was behaving fine, playing, eating but only tired some. That finally subsided and life went on as normal. Then last Friday he vomitted again but it didn't seem to affect him other than just going to bed early that night. Saturday we had a full day with the MS walk then to a birthday party at a bouncy house place, he had a blast all day so going to bed early wasn't a shock to me. Sunday he was still tire, but played with his sisters.
Monday he got up with lots of energy ate breakfast but then was laying his head down on the kitchen table complaining of a headache. So he gets set up on the couch with a blanket and pillow watching a movie when out of nowhere vomit all over the place! After that he couldn't keep anything down, not even water. This lasted for 24 hrs then we were at the pedi's office. We didn't see their regular pediatrician but one of the partners. I explained what had been happening while Brady lay sleeping on the exam bed. Dr. Worsley seemed concerened about the headaches coupled with the vomitting. Again, Brady's reflexes were good but he was doing something wierd with his mouth. He wouldn't say if he was being silly or not so Dr. Worsley said let's go to Cook Children's and get him some fluids and we'll do a CT scan just to rule out anything neuro. So away we went. We met Larry at Cook's ER and got back really quickly to get him assessed. Fluids were started and a little while later we head back for a CT scan.
About an hour later the ER doc came in and settled against the counter. "Unfortunately it's not good. There is a mass and its sizeable." Oh my God, NO! NO, NO, NO! This was supposed to rule out all the bad head stuff not produce it! How can this be happening to my baby?? What now?
After an initial cry, I went back to look at the CT scan while Larry stayed with Brady. I knew it when I saw it and it was huge. I don't really recall what the NP was saying about the scan, I know enough about them and she wasn't going to be able to tell me anything I didn't already know. All I could think was how could this thing have been growing inside my baby's head all this time and we never knew. Refocus, how do we take care of this? What’s the next step? After talking to a few different doctors the next step is to wait for an MRI. So we wait for the rest of Tuesday and half of Wednesday to get him into an MRI machine.
This was the longest wait, wondering what the hell is growing inside my baby. Is it a cyst, is it cancer, is it treatable? We got the report back on the MRI and it seemed not so bad the way it was explained. Basically it was a watery mass with a formed circular wall. Hopefully this meant it was a cyst but cysts don't have formed walls. It was a relief somewhat because they were hopeful that it wasn't a malignancy. Not completely sure, but hopeful.
Now we prepare for the long day ahead for surgery. This evening Brady needed to get another IV line started. It took 7 nurses and 1 doctor before they finally got it to stay. His veins kept blowing the IV right out. We felt so sorry for him because he was so distraught and begging us to stop hurting him. Finally, when the doctor came to take a look Larry just told him. If he didn't think he was gonig to get it then no more! That is when they finally got it to stay. This whole process took about 2 hours and now Brady was totally exhausted it was like midnight so no good sleep for him or us before the worst day of our lives to date!
Thursday morning surgery time came and Larry and I were dreading it. We walked with Brady down to the OR and all he could talk about was that Andre Johnson was his favorite player and how he wanted to tell the nurses who his favorite player was! It was so cute and funny that it made it a little easier to let him go to surgery in good spirits. We later got a call from the nurse letting us know that they asked him if he knew who Brett Farve was and his response..."Brett Farve's a LOSER!" They thought he was so funny! During his 10 hour surgery they called every hour to let us know how he was doing and he was stable the entire time only needing one transfusion for normal blood loss.
Finally, it was over and Dr. Roberts, the surgeon, arrived to talk with us about the procedure. All went well, text book even, but it was very large and looked to be a high-level malignancy but couldn't say for sure on anything until the final pathology report came out. That was hard to swallow, but we were bound to keep it together. The room was so quiet and I just needed to pace a little, breathe and process this information. After about 5 minutes the surgeon came back in with a much better look on his face and told us Bradyn had other plans. He had extubated himself and was asking for help and his mommy and daddy! We were so ecstatic! I know I couldn't wait to get to his bedside to see him, I could barely contain myself! He was telling the nurses and techs to leave him alone, he didn't want to get mad! He nearly came off the bed when they tried to put a pull up on him exclaiming he wasn't a baby, he was a big boy, he wears underwear! Larry and I couldn't have been more relieved. We both had this huge underlying fear that Brady wasn't going to make it through surgery alive so this was so awesome! I was so glad we didn't lose it after talking with the surgeon since this surprise was waiting for us.
We both finally got a few more hours sleep Thursday night and Friday he was scheduled for a post-op MRI to make sure they got it all and it looked really clean. Now we wait to be moved out of ICU and to see wha thte final pathology report would tell us about this tumor.
The weekend was good with many more visitors and goodies for Brady! We moved out of the ICU and up to the 4th floor on Saturday afternoon. Brady is recovering well from his surgery and by Sunday evening his right eye that was swollen shut has almost completely opened up. He really became himself over the weekend after getting all that anesthesia out of his system. He talked and ate all day Sunday making up for lost time!!
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