Colin Loves Tractors » Physical Therapy

Full Circle

Mom — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 07:20:29 +0000

Colin returned home, nearly a year from the completion of radiation and two months short of his fourth birthday, with a good scan and no trach. Well, we have plenty of trachs, but none actually inserted in him. Anticipation of the possibility that Colin would come home without that annoying, formerly life saving appliance swept [...]

True North

Mom — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 05:24:41 +0000

Colin is in remission, and it now seems easier to utter the words aloud. His scan from January was still “stable,” with Dr. Gajjar now asserting that the sliver of “whatever” that cradles Colin’s brain stem is scar tissue. He further stressed that surgery would not help and would only cause more damage (duh!). All [...]

Finding the Narrow Path

Mom — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 09:11:14 +0000

Life is normal, or at least a simulacrum of normalcy that is close enough to count. Since the last scan (in sum, stable), Colin has started school again and is finally able to live without the specter of chemo hanging over his head. If he’s tired, he’s just tired and maybe coming down with something. [...]

Put Me in, Coach

Mom — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 15:10:10 +0000

As Colin’s trajectory moves unevenly but steadily upward, we have also been taking him out into the world to finally do what he could not a year ago. At the same time, we are still at the phase where we turn back the mental clock by a year, reminding ourselves of what Colin’s life was [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Out of the Nest

Mom — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:20:12 +0000

Colin Mugging for the Camera at Le Bonheur (Post-Ops)

Our little fledgling has returned to Target House for good, following his last inpatient stay at St. Jude (barring unexpected events, of course).

While we will spend every week day at St. Jude, our trips to the second floor will be restricted to social calls. This milestone [...]

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 how his magnesium was doing.

On [...]

The Best Laid Plans…

Mom — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:12:59 +0000

With surgery set for Wednesday, Monday was a big prep day for Colin, but he demonstrated yet again that our careful planning can be rendered irrelevant by the result of a single blood culture. In short, Colin does not head to Le Bonheur for surgery, not yet at least. As it stands, his surgery has [...]