Nathan - Anchorage

Nathan is the youngest of 4 brothers.  He is a very polite kid with lots of friends and has been on the honor roll at Hanshew Middle school this whole year. In February, he started to feel like he was getting the flu. Things like the brightness on the TV would hurt his eyes.  He then started complaining of hearing a heartbeat in his ear. His pediatrician couldn’t figure out what was wrong. His blood work came back good. Then he told me his eyes were starting to get blurry, so we made him an eye appointment for the following week. Over the weekend, he went to see a movie and his uncle asked what he had thought of the movie. He mentioned during the movie he started seeing double. I called around to find an eye doctor that would see him that Sunday. Lens Crafters told us to bring him in and ran tests on him and told us to get him to the emergency room ASAP.

That was March 10th and the night before his 14th birthday. They did a bunch of scans and told us he would need surgery.  He had a tumor on his pineal gland. On his birthday, the doctor did surgery to relieve the pressure from the fluid build-up and the surgery was successful. He started chemo in April and had in-patient chemo starting April 29th. After 6 months of chemo, he will get radiation in Seattle. Nathan is a very positive kid and strong. He was born a month and half early and was strong then. We know he’s going to kick this cancer’s butt!