Colin Loves Tractors » Interpreting MRIs

Parallels and Contrasts

Mom — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:32:40 +0000

It is all too easy to feed off of birthdays, anniversaries, and other meaningful demarcations of time. How long since, how long until? In the x days since returning home, we have done y activities and Colin has achieved z milestones, giving us something to plot and chart in three dimensions.

In Memphis, I had imagined [...]

Winding Down*

Mom — Tue, 04 May 2010 06:53:06 +0000

Our family’s time at St. Jude is drawing to a close. On Friday, April 16, Colin had his last MRI before he goes home. The suspected tumor, as we hoped/anticipated, remains stable, and the spinal scans are still clear. Furthermore, the blood clot has resolved significantly, with some pieces remaining and very good blood flow [...]

Reset Button

Mom — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:43:52 +0000

Colin’s second week of radiation was grueling: vomiting, utter fatigue, dangerous aspiration and an unexpected stay in the hospital. The third week (days 9 – 13) was a completely different story. After going back inpatient at St. Jude, Colin slept for two days straight, waking on Friday morning at 4 am to let me know [...]

Sword of Damocles

Mom — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:55:14 +0000

Colin is always full of surprises and has continued to not disappoint us. It would be funny if it weren’t so worrisome, with Friday bringing the need for another burst of medical education.

Friday, Colin had his two week post-op MRI to determine the disposition of residual tumor. As we all had suspected, there is a [...]

Rising Storm

Mom — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:24:53 +0000

On Sunday afternoon, I left Le Bonheur to pick up a few things at the grocery store, walking out of the sterile air into the openness of a springlike day. The sun was bright and the air a pleasantly neutral temperature, but the sky betrayed another mood in the dark gray distance.

By the time I [...]

Eyes on the Prize

Mom — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 06:30:00 +0000

Our little Hoss ◄ Back Next ► Picture 1 of 18

Colin tries to do some damage on yogurt.

Colin’s habit of throwing us for a loop has continued unabated. Although blood cultures from the 12th did not produce anything, cultures from the 13th did. In a nutshell, Dr. Boop will not do a surgery, especially one that is [...]

The Sky is Falling!

Mom — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:03:24 +0000

Oh, wait. That’s just snow. Target House Elephants: Normally, this is a fountain, and through the holidays the pachyderms were adorned with white lights.

Memphis has collapsed into pandemonium over the thinnest blanket of white that lasted long enough only for extremely fleet shovelers to find anything worth clearing from sidewalks. The snow is nestled in stalks of [...]

Time for the ANC Dance

Mom — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:18:36 +0000

Well, today was Colin’s No Mo’ Chemo party, but for some reason, the chemo didn’t put on its listening ears. For one thing, Colin has been vomiting again, though not horrifically. It’s just enough to knock him down a few times a day. For another, his ANC is still 0, not a huge surprise but [...]

Home Again

Mom — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:45:51 +0000

Tomorrow, we plan on bringing Colin home again. After much planning and deliberation, St. Jude found another home health care agency to provide nighttime nursing. We met with three of the staff, including one of the nurses who would be taking care of Colin.

Following chemo, he was especially weak and tired, but every day he [...]

First Chemo, Then Home

Mom — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 06:31:04 +0000

Colin has an official discharge date: Wednesday. However, in order to come home, he has to go through two days of hard chemotherapy (a shot of vincristine followed by a cisplatin IV on Saturday; a cyclophosphamide IV on Sunday). While the immediate effects will come and go before he leaves, it likely will take a [...]