Colin Loves Tractors » Decisions

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 [...]

Operation Radiation

Mom — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 04:45:57 +0000

Colin’s final radiation treatments found us at Methodist Central, an adult hospital not far from St. Jude in midtown Memphis. The final dose of radiation was delivered on Saturday morning, when a normal child of his age is watching cartoons. We are in the home stretch of our time here in Memphis and the more [...]

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 [...]

Predator vs. Alien

Mom — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:08:38 +0000

Since finding out about Colin’s blood clot, we have settled into a normal non-medically intense lifestyle punctuated by the possibility of crisis. On Superbowl Sunday, Colin became inexplicably agitated and then very spaced out, eyes unfocused and suddenly falling asleep sitting up. The pseudomeningocele on the back of his head had become an even larger, [...]

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 [...]

Home Sweet St. Jude

Mom — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:44:36 +0000

Life doesn’t offer real do-overs, but there are times when an experience follows the parallel track of something that has come before. Returning to St. Jude after less than a week at Le Bonheur, I had the feeling that I was given the opportunity to completely repeat the past but improved in every way.

Rewind

When we [...]

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 [...]

I’m In!

Mom — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:40:38 +0000

The news of the impending loss of Colin’s port was sobering, but we put it behind us as we launched into the holiday weekend.

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Even at St. Jude, things slow down over three-day weekends, and during this period we only had one appointment, a lab check on Sunday to see [...]

Eyes on the Prize

Mom — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 06:30:00 +0000

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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 [...]