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Jason's Journey

Fishin'! July 2006


Welcome to Jason's Web Page. It has been provided to keep people updated about Jasons treatments. Please feel free to visit often and sign the guestbook each time. Jason loves to hear the entries from everyone.

Born in Dec. 1995, Jason was the picture of health. On his 5th birthday we noticed a small lump on his left shoulder blade. No big deal, right? We will take him to his birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese and then stop by the doctor on the way home.

We were told it was probably a lipoma, a fatty cyst, and very common. Still, knowing my family history with cancer, I needed more reassurance, something concrete. So an ultrasound was scheduled for the following week. On the ultrasound they noticed that this "cyst" had its own blood supply. I didn't think anything of it, but they knew. It took a FULL MONTH for our insurance to approve an MRI (love the Navy, but the paperwork sucks). The MRI was inconclusive. No big deal they said, but we can't tell you that it is a cyst. Whatever it was was self contained, so if it is malignant it isn't too dangerous. We were sent to Columbia, two hours away to see an orthopeadist because the lump was in the muscle and very close to bone. He saw us on Tuesday and surgery was scheduled for Friday, Feb. 9,2001. He too thought it was nothing more than a cyst of somesort because it was so self-contained.

Friday was the worst day of our lives. Jason went in to have a cyst removed, but the dr. came out with only a tiny biopsy. CANCER! Not any cancer either, rhabdomyosarcoma, very aggressive tumor. If their are other lesions in his body, Jason's chances for survival are fairly low. So the scans begin, MRI's, CT's, and full body nuclear bone scans. Thank God it was not anywhere else. Chemo was to start on Feb. 27, he had a bone marrow biopsy and a central line placed on Feb. 26, 2001.

Nearly 10 months of chemo, a wide resection of his left scapula, and 30 treatments of radiation later Jason is in remission! His last treatment was Dec. 17, 2001. All scans since have been beautifully clear!

Journal

Thursday, November 9, 2006 7:58 PM CST

Five years and counting!

Next month will mark 5 years off of therapy for Jason as well as 6 years since diagnosis. We have come so far. He just finished another succesful season of soccer and continues to hit the All A or AB Honor Roll every semester.

I prayed for the day when we couldn't remember the pain of watching our son fight this battle and I think we are finally there. However we will never forget the sheer terror of hearing the words "I'm sorry, but ... " , and we pray that we will never hear them again.

With Jason hitting the five year mark the tests now start looking at other aspects of his health and try to screen not only for a recurrence of Rhabdo, but also keeping a watchful eye out for secondary cancers.

We knew going into therapy that some of the drugs they would give him may lead to secondary cancers later in life ... but the other option was not acceptable. Certain death at age 6 vs. a small chance of fighting cancer again in the distant future .... I don't wish that deck of cards on anyone, but it is what we have been given.

Life is good. Jason is happy, healthy, smart, ornery, sarcastic .... everything we hoped he would get to grow up to be :D


Take care everyone and have a happy Holiday season!

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Links:

http://www.candlelighters.org   Chilhood Cancer Organization
http://www.geocities.com/jasoncharon   Our family webpage (with lots of pictures!)
http://www.chemoangels.com   A place to sponsor a person on chemotherapy - Become an angel!


 
 

E-mail Author: jasncharon@hotmail.com

 
 

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