Colin Loves Tractors » Dr. Gajjar

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 [...]

No, No, No, How are You Doing?

Mom — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:31:22 +0000

Perhaps I was naively unconcerned about Colin’s latest scan. We returned to Memphis after a month at home for a battery of follow-ups, most importantly the MRI of the brain and spine. The legendary furnace of early July in Memphis intimidated us, yet those first days turned out to be [...]

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 [...]

Survivor: Target House

Mom — Sun, 23 May 2010 13:10:43 +0000

There is no immunity challenge, and Jeff Probst doesn’t sit us around a campfire to discuss who is next to go, but living here is beginning to feel like a warped version of the Survivor reality show. So many families that were planning to leave after us are by now long gone.

The Simkins, who have [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

They’re In

Mom — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:37:01 +0000

Colin went down for surgery at around 7:00 am and I left him in the OR about 45 minutes later. We got a call from the OR nurse at around 8:45 saying that Dr. Boop had just “gone in.” An hour later, they pulled out the microscope. For Dr. Boop’s team, the real works begins. [...]

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 [...]