Jack's Journey
By Nicole Putnam Romanotto. Jack, our middle child, is 10 years old smart, happy, sweet, easy going kid. He likes independent activities and enjoys some alone time, especially if it allows him to play on his electronic devices and watch YouTube videos! That being said, we didn’t think too much into it when he complained of right foot pain last summer during baseball season. He told Vinnie and I that it just hurt when he walked on it, and that he twisted it in PE a couple of weeks before. So Vinnie took him to his doctor to have it looked at. At the doctor’s they were told it was a sprained ankle and that no other testing was necessary; if the pain worsened or did not subside then to bring him back in and they will have it x-rayed. Vinnie took him and got an ankle brace that he could wear while at practice and games and this seemed to help enough that he was able to walk and run with no problems and he didn’t have any more complaints about his foot. We didn’t think too much about it after that.
The real problems began, or when I started to connect the other foot complaints together, was Thursday January 19th. I was still at work and Vinnie was getting the kids ready for school when I got a text from Vinnie that Jack was saying his right foot was really hurting, he wouldn’t get out of bed or walk on it, and he was crying so much that he was making himself sick. I figured I better take him in and get this checked out, this might be more than a sprain or growing pains maybe he broke something. That afternoon I took him into the express care and his x-ray showed a cyst, about 4cm big, in his heel bone. This kind of worried me…a cyst? Of course by now I had so many questions running through my head. The doctor at the express care told us he would need an MRI of his foot and to call his pediatrician to have this scheduled. And that I did! First thing that next morning I called his pediatrician and they set us up an appointment for the following week. When the MRI results came back his pediatrician’s office called me and said it was a lytic lesion, though they didn’t feel this was anything of major concern and that they wanted to refer us to a pediatric orthopedic doctor to determine surgical treatment to remove it.
The orthopedic doctor’s office made us a visit for the very next day, on February 1st, which was great; maybe we can finally get some answers. The doctor sat down and talked to us for about 30 minutes and went over the x-ray and MRI. She said she wanted to have another MRI done but this time with contrast to see what this cyst or lesion reacted to the contrast to get a better idea of what all it was affecting. They scheduled the MRI for that following Friday the 3rd. This MRI didn’t give her any more of a definitive answer, and without knowing for sure she didn’t feel completely comfortable doing surgery, so she wanted to biopsy the area in his foot. She gave him a boot to wear on his foot, told him to try to not put any weight on that foot as much as possible. And so a biopsy was scheduled for Thursday February 9th. I was kind of freaking out by now and to top it all off we were told it would take a couple of weeks to have final results from the biopsy. I just wanted some answers, the waiting was torturous.
Unfortunately we didn’t have to wait long. That following Monday I received a call from a pediatric oncologist’s office wanting us to come in for an appointment the very next day, Tuesday the 14th. They didn’t want to give me answers over the phone without seeing them first, but I knew this obviously wasn’t going to be good. That next morning we went in for our appointment. The doctor talked to Jack about how he’s been doing, asked us to explain the process of what has been going on and then he sat down and told us…”the biopsy results show that Jack has Ewing’s sarcoma, a cancerous tumor, in his right calcaneus (heel) bone. Thus far I had been doing pretty good about holding it together, and at least not getting emotional around the kids, but I just broke down and started crying. Is this real?!? It was the hardest day I have ever had, and not a very good Valentine’s Day at that. The oncologist told us he really wanted to get things moving to make sure it hadn’t metastasized (spread) anywhere else. While we were in the office they scheduled a bunch of tests for that Thursday the 16th to check and see if it has spread and to get a baseline of how his kidneys, heart, and other organs were functioning before starting chemo. They also wanted Jack to have a bone marrow biopsy and place a port inside his chest for IV chemotherapy treatment on that Friday the 17th. Wow never in my wildest dreams would I have thought we would be going through cancer and chemotherapy treatment for one of our children; it’s something that really never crosses your mind.
Jack has done surprising well through all of this. Going from the kid who would find a scab and put a Band-Aid over it (we have gone through many, many Band-Aids in this house) to having four tests which required an IV for each one and contrast put through them and two procedures done in an operating room while being put to sleep; I’d have to say I am proud beyond words of him! He hobbles around with a boot on his foot and crutches with a smile on his face and still has a positive outlook! Though he has cried a couple of times and he is understandably scared, I definitely admire him and even in this short amount of time he has taught me so much about strength and support. It is true you don’t know what to do in these types of situations and it is a complete learning process, but I told Jack rest assured you will NEVER be alone and your dad and I will do whatever we have to do to get you through this and make sure you have the best of whatever treatment you need!
Newest Update
Tomorrow's a very big day!
Journal entry by Nicole Romanotto — 50 minutes ago
Jack is going in for his first chemo treatment tomorrow 2/21! He will be staying overnight. The plan is for him to only stay one night as long as all goes well!
