Mack started complaining about headache in March of this year, and like all parents, we suggested he drink some water, asked if he had eaten yet, made sure he wasn't staying up til 3am on a screen, etc. Then they got more consistent and he started going to the nurse and asking to come home from school.

We figured it was just part of growing or a bug going around.  Then, in May, he came to me (dad) and said the edges of his vision were getting dark along with his headache.  Of course, this sounded more serious and we made an appointment with his Pediatrician.  She suggested we see a neurologist and ophthalmologist after hearing that mom had migraines as a child that were fixed with glasses. 

We assumed he was going to get glasses at some point and it would end with that.

Narrator: It didn't end with that.

In mid June, when the neurologist heard that mack had been woken up by a headache, she chose to send us for an MRI "out of an abundance of caution."  We scheduled that for July 26. 

To give you an idea of how concerned we were, mom didn't come to the appointment and I (dad) had a tattoo scheduled for later in the day - we assumed it was a routine box to check on the way to getting those glasses from the ophthalmologist. 

Well the initial MRI was about 20 minutes and they came back to say they needed to take one extra look, so it will be another 30 minutes - of course, alarm bells started going off in my head immediately.  Crystal heard that and without causing a scene, quietly started making her way to the hospital. She knew that meant they found something. 

After the additional MRI, they had me talk to a radiologist who got on the phone and said "We see something that would explain those headaches." 

My stomach dropped, my heart rate shot to 185, and my apple watch alerted - hearts aren't supposed to do that without a bunch of movement. 

They saw "3-4 cm mass in the 4th ventricle in the posterior fossa."  A brain tumor, the size of a golf ball. 

Within an hour, Heather, Chris, Crystal, Link, and grandparents were at the hospital awaiting more news.  Mack was admitted immediately and scheduled for more intense MRI's for Sunday morning - with the potential for surgery as early as Tuesday. 

The Sunday morning MRI's lasted for 3 solid hours.  If you've ever been in an MRI you likely understand what an ordeal 3 hours of it would be. Of course, Mack handled it like a champ and watched Ratatouille and the first half of Moana. 

I broke down sobbing like a baby (or a dad whose baby has brain cancer) when the first Moana songs came on.  In 2017, Mack and I probably watched Moana 100 times. 

The MRI showed no Metastasis in his spine - so as far as we can tell, the tumor is localized to his brain. 

This MRI also indicated that the tumor is a Medulloblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer which arises from undifferentiated embryonal neuroepithelial cells in the cerebellum (called "blasts").  That is, infant brain cells that could turn into almost any of the cell types in the brain. 

This type of brain cancer predominantly affects children (as we lose those embryonic cells over time) and ~437 kids per year are diagnosed with it. 

After Sunday's MRI, the surgery got scheduled for Monday morning - the doctors had a slot and wanted to move quickly. At 10:05am on Monday morning, Heather and I said our goodbyes, and they wheeled our baby back to cut open his skull.  

The incision sliced vertically in the center of the back of his neck, just below his skull.  The surgeon pulled Mack's neck muscles aside then removed a circle of his skull about the size of a silver dollar.  Just enough to get his tools in there. 

The tumor, about the size of a golf ball, was lodged between Mack's brain stem and cerebellum in a fluid filled space called the 4th ventricle in the posterior fossa. That fluid filled space is where cerebrospinal fluid (which is generated higher in the brain) flow down into the spinal column.  

The tumor was blocking that flow, so fluid was building up in his brain, which explains the headaches and other related symptoms that were only related in hindsight. 

The surgery was a huge success.  The surgeon says they got it all - and subsequent MRI's confirmed that the tumor is gone! 

So the easy part is done...

That shit is hard. It's been 3 days and the big accomplishment in physical therapy today was that he was able to put his socks on himself. 

Then walk 7 or 8 steps to sit in a chair, propped up with pillows, for about 20 minutes. 

Since Sunday night at 10pm, he's eaten a few grapes, a few crackers, a few pieces of sushi, and a few sips of lemonade. 

He kept NOTHING down Monday and didn't stop vomiting until Tuesday afternoon. The nausea continued in force until Wednesday evening - it's starting to subside today, but it's definitely still there. 

He's seeing double. Light is always too intense. So we made some makeshift glasses to block one side so he only see's one of things. They made for a good picture, but ultimately didn't work, so instead, I'm carefully wrapping his head with a pillowcase to cover one eye. 

Heather and I are switching off nights in the ICU with him - so we get one good night of sleep at home, followed by a harrowing night of constantly waking up, horrified that whatever just beeped is bad news. 

It's 8:48pm and he's sleeping soundly right next to me and I'm really hoping he'll get a full night of sleep tonight.

The progress is agonizingly slow, but it's progress. 

With cancer of any kind, and with this kind in particular, if there's a single cell left anywhere in the body, it will multiply and grow. So it's not enough to get everything we can see with an MRI.  

We have to get it ALL. 

The neuroncologist, Dr. Chien, said that while we have some indication of the general class of cancer, we still have a lot of tests before we know the specifics enough to treat. 

Medulloblastomas have 4 subtypes (WNT, SHH, G3, and G4 for the nerds who want to go look it up), each of which have 3-5 genetics or molecular variants, with more and more detailed subdivisions being identified every year. 

Dr. Chien told us that while we don't know the specifics, we can plan on about 6 weeks of radiation and then up to a year of chemotherapy - and that the treatment will likely be somewhere in the 7/10 range of intensity. 

Mack will lose all of his hair. 

Mack won't have 6th grade the way the rest of us did. 

Mack isn't going on the birthday trip we had planned. 

Instead, he'll be fighting for his life. And we'll all be fighting along side him doing any and everything we can to make sure that hair grows back, 7th grade is everything he hoped, and the 13th birthday trip is a blast!

(Get it? "blast"?)