Donald's Journey

Donald lives with me, his dad and older sister Elspeth. At the beginning of June, it was discovered that our son had a 2 cm mass in the third ventricle of his brain. Since then he had it mostly removed with very little of it left behind. He also ended up having a shunt put in due to Hydrocephalus that developed from the blocked fluid in his brain.  The results of the mass came back that it was an immature teratoma. He has had two rounds of chemo so far and he is due to have 4 more. Due to this, we moved temporarily closer to Duke where he is receiving his treatments. He has had low numbers so we have been having to go to the hospital about every 2-3 days for labs outside of his chemo treatments which is hard on us mostly cause free parking is not provided. 

As of November 2019, Donald is heading into surgery on the 20th. They need a new biopsy from the reoccurring growth to determine if it's the teratoma or possible a new tumor in order to properly prepare how to treat it. We no longer stay at the apartment in Chapel Hill due to him about to be sent out of state. There is a good chance he will wake up weak on one side, the severity and permanence will not be known until after the procedure and of course as time goes on. After the surgery and biopsy results come back, he will be sent to Philadelphia for proton radiation. 

December 2019: Donald is getting new chemo to helpfully stop and reduce tumor growth and reduce the dosage of radiation he will be given. The biopsy results showed that it has a PNET component that is malignant.

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