ADAMS STORY
In May of 1994 my son Adam was curiously sick with what seemed to be the flu. I took him to our family physician and had him checked out. The doctor told me that he must have had a virus, as everything looked ok. To make a long story short I took him in a total of five times and he was diagnosed with a bad case of the flu every time. Well we noticed Adam was very dizzy and he was throwing up all the time, he would show signs of feeling better and then relapse again. Finally I got a little more persistant and basically was going to get a second opinion, as I was getting nowhere with this doctor I had trusted my families care with. He quickly called a pediatric doctor and told him Adams symptoms. The doctor said get him down here right away! Well, 30 minutes later he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, called Medulloblastoma.
We immediately flew to the Seattle Children's Hospital And Medical Center. We talked to the Brain Surgeon there, who told us everything would be okay and he's seen this a lot and Adam will live through it. So we went to surgery and it was the longest 8 hours of my life. Finally we were able to see our little child in the recovery room. He was the puffiest thing. All sedated and hooked up to monitors with tubes coming out of his head. Something I would never wish a parent to see. Something my memory will hold till the day that I die.
The surgery went okay and the doctor sat down and told us that he thought it was cancer. I was still in shock over the brain tumor, I didn't even think about the possibilities of Cancer. He also told us that Adam might get what they called Posterior Fossa Syndrome. Some of the symptoms would be like no walking, no talking, no eating, no swallowing, and continuous crying. Usually they get one or two of the symptoms. Adam got every one of them.
It was a long six months. I had to hold Adam and rock him on my lap continually. He would cry and cry. They thought it was because he suddenly couldn't do the things that we take for granted. So he was frustrated.
Adam went through Radiation therapy, thankfully it ended up being a pretty low dose. Every day, for 8 weeks I drove him to get his radiation therapy. After that he started a dose of chemotherapy and had a regular schedule that we had to follow faithfully. We also had daily physical therapy to teach him how to walk and get his motor functions back. We saw an Occupational Therapist to try to get Adam to swallow food again and talk. We did something every day of the week for 6 months.
Finally Adam was starting to show signs of life again. We were rejoicing. he still wouldn't eat, but could take a few steps. Adam had to have a feeding tube put in his stomach, so we could feed him intravenously. Adam was withering away to nothing. Another thing we had to deal with, along with the infections. Were the antibiotics, the sickness, the hair loss, and the continuous crying. The doctors assured us it was not crying in pain, but crying that he couldn't control.
Jumping ahead, as I do not want to bore you to death. After all his chemo, the therapy, and all the radiation were done. We had another MRI and it showed that Adams Cancer was completely gone.
Today we are getting ready to celebrate 5 years cancer free! Adam has some learning problems, sees double, and has a thyroid condition. We just found out recently that Adam has a growth issue and we are dealing with it at this moment. This will mean shots everyday till he's around 16 years old. Also Adam's balance is terrible and we fight fatigue still everyday after 5 years. Adam will battle these lasting results for the rest of his life. He is alive and that is all that is important!
As the title of this web site goes....Cancer does not always have to be a death sentance!
WHY THE WEB SITE ?
I have made this web site for anybody that might be having the same symptoms and might want to e-mail me with any questions. I feel like I just went to school to learn a CRASH course in Brain Tumor, radiation, Chemo, and all the above stuff in a matter of a month I had to know everything there was to know.
SPECIAL THANKS
I would like to thank the following people for being so great through all of this.
All my family and friends for helping us with everything.
Selland Construction, Andy Reeves and Prarie Fire.
Doctors and nurses that are so wonderful.
Children's Hospital and Medical Center
Ronald McDonald house
American Cancer Society
Make-a-wish Foundation
Komo News
Albertson's
And to Craig Bradshaw for making this site for me.
Be sure and visit Darla's World my family home page.
Send me a message below through the AOL chat panel
you can also contact me through E-mail darlie444@yahoo.com
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Adam created the following picture for a Christmas card for the Childrens Hosiptal, he joined a contest in 1997 for children that had been patients of the hospital and won....... so they made cards and sold them per box and Adam helped raise money for uncompensated care. He was very proud of his card...... he is quite the budding artist.
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These pages are copyright © 1999-2007 by Darla all rights reserved.
For feedback on web site design contact Craig L Bradshaw Jr