Welcome Friends!
Kaleb "Brooks" R.
Tennessee
Birth Date - May 9th, 2008
Main Diagnosis - Pilocytic Astrocytoma in spinal cord
THEME: superheroes especially spiderman
Biography
Brooks is our first child. We were so ready to become parents and he
was an absolute blessing. He was the perfect baby! Brooks was a very healthy
child other than the occasional cold. I noticed at 2 that he wasn't running
correctly. I passed it off as "he'll eventually learn to run". By 3 it wasn't
any better so I mentioned it to his pediatrician (May 2011). He agreed that
something was off so he sent us to an ortho who did hip xrays. His hips were
fine. A few days later we were asked to bring him in for a blood test to check
for MD. That came back fine so off to a Neurologist we went. We saw him Sept.
2011 and he did an EMG that came back fine and said I want to see him in 6mo. In
March 2012 he basically passed him off as "sometimes kids can be difficult".
Telling us that he would outgrow his running funny and not putting on his own
clothes from the waste down. Well, that didnt cut it for me. I went back to his
pediatrician and said that I didn't accept that diag
nosis and he said he'd reevaluate him (March 2012). He noticed a slight case of
kyphosis and Brooks not bending at the hips and not walking up steps correctly.
From there we saw the ortho again and he did an xray that wielded nothing but
agreed that something wasn't right so he ordered an MRI (April 2012). On May 10,
2012, a day after he turned 4, they found a tumor wrapped within his spinal
cord. On May 22nd, he had surgery to remove it (T8-L2) but because they believe
it had been in his spinal cord since infancy, it was integrated with healthy
tissue and weren't able to take much out. He was at Vandy for a week, a rehab
hospital in KY for a week, was paralyzed for about 6 weeks, used a walker for 3
and finally had to relearn to walk. He started chemo in June 2012 and is
supposed to end in Aug 2013. He go to OT and PT twice every week to work on
coordination and strength in his legs and try and combat the neuropathy in his
hands that the chemo causes.
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