Tragedy

On a nice summer day they went to a movie, 4 year old boy and his young, in their mid thirties, parents. During the movie or right after it, the boy started behaving weird, he stopped talking, fell on the ground and start having seizure. They rushed to the emergency room, where the seizure was stopped with medications. On the head CT scan a huge posterior fossa brain tumor was discovered. Retrospectively, they did acknowledge the fact that in the last month or so, he had been complainig of some headache, and had several episodes of vomiting, their pediatrician was thinking about some possible stomach flu kind of problem.
When I was called the neurosurgeon was very concerned on the phone - usually a bad sign- our guys are pretty calm here, so if there is a problem it's a real deal, not "just a test". I rushed to the ICU, the kid looked very sleepy, his pupils were reactive but uneven, blood pressure was normal, but heart rate was somewhat slow - pending brain herniation! We took him down to the operating room right away, and put an EVD - a draining device to decrease build up of brain fluid - his massive tumor obstructed normal passage of the brain fluid and it had nowhere to go, as a result pressure on the brain itself kept on building up and there was a point where it was high enough to cause his seizure and other symptoms. Unfortunately that how it is in kids - no any signs until it's huge. We brought him back still asleep. The MRI was done the next day, there are already metastasis into the spinal cord, he is having big surgery tomorrow, and then it is going to be a long sessions of chemo and radiation. Just wanna go home and hug my kids...