Sat, 01 May 1999 08:00

Logan fell out of crib

On Friday, April 16, Laura had put Logan down for his afternoon nap, as usual, but he kept getting up out of his toddler bed. This was out of character for him, although he had started doing it more and more in the past couple of weeks. He is normally very compliant, and we have never had trouble with him getting out of bed before. After several episodes, Laura decided to put him in Adam's crib, since Adam had already had his nap.

For whatever reason, Logan was determined not to be in bed. While Laura was on the phone, he tried to climb out of the crib. Laura heard a loud thump come from Logan's room, and when she went to look, Logan was lying on his back on the floor, crying. Apparently he had fallen.

After the fall, he was very unbalanced. Even after a few hours, he could not walk in a straight line. When I got home from work, I tossed a little ball across the room and told him to go get it. He walked like a drunk man, and he couldn't bend down to pick up the ball without falling. Something was obviously wrong.

At about 6pm, we took him to his pediatrician, Dr. Michael Smith, who suspected a concussion, so he sent us to Wake Medical Center on New Bern Avenue to have a CAT scan of his brain. Logan vomited several times on the way from the pediatrician's office to Wake Medical. Dr. Smith had told us to watch out for that, and that it would be another sign of concussion, so we were starting to think that he really did have a concussion.

After the CAT scan, we waited and waited for somebody to tell us what was going on. Finally, at about 10pm, Dr. Smith showed up. We didn't expect to see him there. He told us the news: It looks like Logan has a brain tumor. What a sinking, empty feeling inside! My boy! He looked so good when I left for work this morning. Can this really be?

Dr. Smith said we needed to take Logan to Duke. Now? It's so late!

We stopped at home to change Logan's clothes, still covered with vomit, and to make a couple phone calls. We got to Duke sometime around midnight and went to the emergency room.

One of the doctors explained the CAT scan. The brain and spinal column contain cerebrospinal fluid. This fluid circulates through the spinal column and a passageway of "ventricles" in the brain. The tumor was located in what they call the fourth ventricle, and was blocking the circulation of fluid, resulting in the buildup of fluid and high pressure in his brain. Logan's ventricles were much larger than normal. He must have had some massive headaches, although he didn't complain about his head hurting.

After being interviewed by several doctors, many of Logan's idiosyncrasies in the past few weeks and months started to make sense. Little things that we noticed, but of course never would have suspected brain tumor! I had noticed that he didn't really like being thrown up in the air anymore. He used to love that so much. But starting sometime around January, he always said "No" when I asked him if he wanted to "jump." I thought he had just gotten bored with it. And when I would lay him down to change his diaper, he would always lay his head down very gingerly, very protective of his head. It was becoming a consistent behavior, but I didn't think it was significant. Laura noticed that he had regressed in his ability to go up and down steps. He used to do it by himself, but lately he would always wait to take hold of someone's hand to help him. If he hadn't fallen out of bed, who knows how long he could have gone?

Logan spent the night in the ICU. The next morning, they did an MRI on his brain, and the surgeon, Dr. Fuchs, showed us the tumor on the MRI, moments before doing the surgery. It was obvious to be seen, even for a guy like me who never looks at brains. The surgery lasted four hours, and Dr. Fuchs said that it looked like medulloblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer that originates between the brain stem and the cerebellum.

They put a shunt in his head to make sure his brain would not build up pressure again. After several days, they finally took it out. Some people have to have a permanent shunt that drains into their stomach.

We're glad to be home again, but it is difficult to see Logan barely able to sit up on his own. His neck is understandably very sore, so he can't really lift his head up. His chin is always flat against his chest.

It is taking a while to get used to the idea that there is no quick fix for this. We're not done. Chemo, radiation, who knows what else. We'll probably be in and out of the hospital a lot in the next several months. Years?

We know that God our Father in heaven is in control. He knows how many hairs are on my head. Laura said something the other night while we were praying that helped me a lot. "Lord, we know that you love Logan more than we do. Help us to make sure that we don't love Logan more than we love you."

Knocker