AT/RT

Today was once again pretty routine. It’s nice that his treatment is short and it doesn’t take up our entire day if we don’t have any other clinic appointments to go to.

As I was sitting in the waiting room waiting for them to call me back into recovery to see Caleb after his treatment, I started talking to another mom. I forget exactly why we started talking, but she was telling me this was only their second day of radiation. I told her we are on day 15 and that means we are half way done with radiation. She asked if I minded telling her what Caleb had. I told her brain tumor (since most people don’t know what AT/RT is this is what I usually tell people). She immediately asked if it was AT/RT, so I was pretty surprised. I said yes and she told me her son has the same thing. After talking for a few minutes we discovered that her son had his surgery only 1 day after Caleb did. Unfortunately he had to have a second surgery when they got to St. Jude and that is why they are behind us in their treatment plan. We only got to talk for a few minutes because her son was headed into treatment and Caleb was headed out, but it was nice to connect with another AT/RT family. I have met other brain tumor patients, but not anyone until now specifically with AT/RT because there aren’t that many cases. It’s hard to really make friends and get to know people because everyone is always in their own little world, rushing around from appointment to appointment. But we are starting to see the same families over and over now both at our radiation treatments and at Target House where we live. So the “hello’s” and mini conversations are happening more and more now.

The rest of the day was pretty normal… Caleb and I played games and play-doh while waiting for his appointment. The boys played on the playground here in the beautiful evening weather after dinner.

I am happy to report Caleb did not feel sick to his stomach after treatment today so I am hoping it was only because we had to go into radiation so late yesterday that it made him feel sick. He was eating in no time today after his treatment and was back to himself! We have another early morning appointment tomorrow so I am hoping everything will go the same! I will leave you with a sweet picture of him reading in his bed by lantern light. Love this kid so much!!