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Keeping the Faith

Ezra

Ezra

Sallman

Submitted by:
Matt and Jaime Sallman

Our son, Ezra, was diagnosed with medulloblastoma on November 21, 2017. He was 2 ½ years old at the time of diagnosis. Roughly 3 to 4 weeks prior to his diagnosis, he vomited a few times and we thought it was associated with an ear infection. After several visits to urgent care and antibiotics, he did not improve. He became progressively fatigued and would vomit. We noticed his gait seemed to be off as he seemed to stumble more often than normal. We took him to urgent care on the Thursday prior to diagnosis. They believed his vomiting was simply a virus as his labs looked normal. That Saturday, I woke up feeling that something was dangerously wrong as he hadn’t run a fever. I even told my husband, I think it could be a brain tumor. I took him to the ER. I asked them to do a scan but they didn’t believe it was warranted. They did treat him for constipation during that visit. On Monday, he woke up and would not stop vomiting. We took him back to the ER. The doctor had us admitted. An MRI the next morning revealed a mass at the back of his head. He had a resection that Friday. They removed the entire tumor with little negative impact to him physically and cognitively. His treatment consisted of 3 “easy” rounds of chemo. He then had 3 rounds of high dose chemo. Essentially 3 rounds of bone marrow transplant using his own stem cells. Radiation was not used due to his age. He finished treatment in June 2018. He has routine scans every 3 months. After treatment we’ve worked with an integrative doctor who has provided nutritional and supplemental suggestions to help his body heal from the damaging side effects of treatment. We believe some of these changes we’ve made have been crucial to his recovery. Ezra did suffer permanent hearing loss from the chemo. While we are grateful for the care provided by the doctors and nurses, we are adamant that improvements to current treatment options must be made. Surviving the treatment was almost as difficult as the cancer itself.