Our son Brady was diagnosed on August 26, 2009, with neuroblastoma just a little over a month after turning 2 years old.  As a mother I just knew that something wasn't right for about a month before that.  It began with a bruise on his eyelid that I took him to the doctor for a couple times along with low iron.  After a couple of visits we were sent to a pediatric hematology/oncology group to further investigate the problem.  On the day I pulled in to the hospital parking lot for our first visit I got a really sick feeling in my stomach.  I just knew something was very wrong.

After many tests and consults all within 2 days it was confirmed.  Brady had stage 4 neuroblastoma.  The bruise on his eyelid was caused by one mass behind his eye.  He also has a large mass in his abdomen and cancer in his bone marrow as well. After two rounds of chemo all the tests were repeated and his bone marrow was clear of cancer and his eye was better and the tumor behind the eye was gone. 

At this point we made our first trip to St. Jude in Memphis for Brady’s bone marrow/stem cell harvest.  We were there over Halloween, and Brady enjoyed the “big Halloween party” as he called it.  After several days of waiting for various counts to be at the right level, we finally had the harvest procedure (after about a week) and were able to return to Kingsport the next day.  Everyone at St. Jude was incredibly kind as well as competent, and we are very thankful for all the work the hospital does and for all the people who support it.  We learned it takes more than $1.4M per day in donations to keep the place running.  With all the facilities, staff, and patients, we can believe it!

Back in TriCities, we continued through round 5 of chemo through the St. Jude affiliate in Johnson City.  Each time was a little different in Brady’s reaction.  Sometimes he was sicker than others, but there is a general pattern in that, for 7 to 10 days after the chemo, he is whiny and does not eat much.  Twice he had to go into the hospital to treat some irritation and possible infection in his digestive tract (a common chemo side effect) with IV meds.

After round 5 Brady headed back to Memphis to have surgery to remove the abdominal tumor – which we found to be 2 tumors that had grown together.  The surgery was long (7 hours) and nerve-racking.  We were praying that he would not lose a kidney – and our prayers in this were answered.  The doctors at St. Jude did a great job and were very caring in their attention to family as well as patient.  The staff was great. Brady was in intensive care for a week after the surgery, but he really had none of the possible post-surgical complications.  He was discharged from the hospital on Christmas Eve, but we had to stay in Memphis over the weekend for one final check before we could return to Kingsport.  In addition to a Christmas Day meal for us all, Brady received an absolutely huge bag of very nice toys from Santa, courtesy of St. Jude – another wonderful thing they do for the kids.

We have just completed round 6 of chemo in Johnson City.  This one has been especially rough on Brady for some reason.  He clearly feels bad and is nauseated, and he has had to make daily trips to the clinic to get IV fluids to keep him hydrated.  Obviously we hope this passes soon – within the usual 7 to 10 days after chemo ends.

Next we will be heading back to St. Jude in Memphis for a number of treatments. There will be more imaging, followed by the bone marrow/stem cell reimplant process.  That takes quite a while; he will be inpatient until the new marrow is functioning and he is able to build some natural immunity to disease.  Then he will have radiation to ‘clean up’ any remaining tumors.  And, after that, he will begin a very long immunotherapy treatment which is intended to build some immunity to the disease in his body.  During all this, we expect to be staying at the Target House at St. Jude.

This all is hard – very hard on Brady, on his parents, and on all the family. But through it all we are so very thankful that the St. Jude facility in Memphis, as well as the affiliate in Johnson City, are there to help treat kids in situations like this.  They do a wonderful job taking care of us all, and the staff pays special attention to the needs of the young patients they treat.  Support for this organization is indeed very worthwhile – we see that first hand!  Our thanks to any and all who help keep St. Jude running!