Colin Loves Tractors » Dr. DeWire

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 [...]

Happy Mother’s Day

Mom — Mon, 10 May 2010 05:51:57 +0000

Mother’s Day is billed as an opportunity for fathers and children to express their gratitude for the other 364 days a year that mothers devote to their families. However, I see it as yet another day to appreciate the two beautiful children that I have had the privilege of taking care of and getting to [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Prepare the Photon Torpedoes

Mom — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:22:22 +0000

With the family reunited and Colin enjoying his time out of the hospital, we are getting ready to move on to the next phase of treatment.

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Colin will get an MRI on Friday morning to assess how effectively surgery removed the remaining tumor and come up with a treatment plan.

The radiation oncologist, Dr. Merchant, will [...]

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 [...]

The Jury Foreman Speaks

Mom — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 02:35:50 +0000

When juries wrap up quickly with a verdict, it can be a good sign or a bad sign, but it usually means that they have found the suspect not guilty. In this case, the jury adjourned hours earlier than expected to report that our little suspect is not guilty of having visible tumor.

At the time [...]

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 [...]

One-Upmanship

Mom — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:53:49 +0000

After Thursday’s flood of good news, it seemed impossible that the trend would continue.

However, Colin wasn’t having any of that. Friday’s first big event was the transesophogeal echocardiogram, which was quick but required sedation.

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Dr. Joshi #1 (the cardiologist) came to take another look at the vegetation in Colin’s heart. Predictably, it took longer to [...]