Landons fight against brain cancer.

Hi, our name is Gladys Mears and Scott Gillespie we our landons parents. I Gladys Mears have been a full time working mom for just over a year to support our family well Scott Gillespie has been full-time care giver for landon as he requires 27/4 care. We are raising founds to help support Landon during his 2nd battle with an aggressive form of brain cancer. Myself and Landons father (Scott) brought Landon to sick kids ER where the amazing team finally found his brain tumor March of 2023 Landon was diagnosed with a Ependymoma after 6 months of fighting with doctors to get a diagnosis as they believed he had a GI issue due to continuous vomiting. Unfortunately he was already at a critical point and surgery had to be done immediately. Landon was rushed into surgery within a few hours and the doctors we're able to remove 98% of his tumor. Unfortunately his tumor had grown off his drain stem and when attempting to remove the last 2% they had to stop as it was affecting the one side of his face. The surgery caused Landon to lose the muscle tone to the one side of his tongue along with his ability to caught, swallow or gage. Landon was fully bound to a whellchair after surgery as he had minimal body stangth and wasn't even able to support his head. Landon fought for a month to recover and be un intubated. After 4 failed attempts they had to find another solution. On the final attempt to remove his breathing tube Landons O2 to drop so low and his heart began to stop beating, they profound CPR and intubated him again but removing his breathing tube was no longer a safe choice. The doctors decided Landon would require a trach to be able to manage his airway and feeding tube for nutrients. After another month of recovery from his Tracheostomy, myself and Scott learning how to care for his trach, feeding tube and pic line we had a medical flight to Ohio for 30 photon radiation treatments for Landons best chance of fighting off his aggressive form of brain cancer. We'll in Ohio Landond had minimal side effects from radiation and grew stronger by the day. He worked hard with physical and occasional therapy and he was walking independently by the time we got home around the end of july. Once home Landon still struggling with his swallowing, and gage reflex but his cough was growing strong. Landon ate strictly from his feeding tube and went for swallowing studies to check on his ability to eat orally. After many long months Landon was able to eat and drink completely by mouth. Landon had undergone multiple scopes to check his scare tissue around his trach site and sleep studies over the year after radiation with the hopes to be able to have his trach removed. Just as we were close to the finish line and removing the trach was looking like it was just around the corner. We went for a scheduled MRI November 7th 2024 and found Landons cancer had returned. Our family decided it was best for me to take a leave from work as things can progress quickly as his cancer is very aggressive. I as Landons mom did not feel comfortable working almost an hour away from home if Landon needed to urgently return to hospital. Thankfully landon was showing no signs or complaints from the return of his cancer. We were all at a lose Landon had fought so hard and been through so much to have this all happening again just has his life was retuning to "normal". Landon had just started his first year back to school after cancer and had made so many wonderful friends. Now we had to take that all away from him and send him back to the hospital for more surgery and treatments again. November 11th 2024 Landon woke up for school with a headache that would not pass with medication. Nuro called later that day to let us know of landons next steps fallowing the discovery of the return of his cancer. The plan was to do a repeat MRI in 8 weeks to check how much growth there was. As at this time the grown was not significant enough to justify going in for brain surgery. After surgery landon would be undergoing more radiation. November 12th landon was getting dressed for school when he began vomiting with no worning or reason and had a headache. We called his Oncology team at sickkids to let them know of his new symptoms. Landons Oncology team told us to come to the ER for landon to be checked over by nuro. We arrived at sickids later that day, they preformed a X-ray and CT scan to check for shunt malfunction to insure that was not the reason for his symptoms. All his tests came back fine, nuro decided to move his up to the nuro floor for over night monitoring. He woke up in the fallowing morning vomiting again. Landons nuro surgeon (head of nuro surgery at sickkids) let us know he's goal was go remove the whole tumor including the remaining 2% left from his previous surgery as his new growth has started growing from there. Landon was in a very critical state when he had his first brain surgery as his brain was severely swollen and his brain stem was severely compressed due to the size of his tumor and built up brain fluid. This time around his brain has had time to recover and his brain stem has returned to normal. Our nuro surgeon said he would like landon to return for a MRI in 3 weeks to check for growth instead of waiting 8 weeks. We are currently waiting and watching for any more symptoms as well have to bring him in right way.