Addison did well for awhile. Around 6 months, actually. After her tumor re-grew so quickly after the initial resection, she received emergency high dose spinal radiation. That halted the tumor's progress in its tracks. Long enough to get in some chemo.
Addison then received approximately six months of very high dose chemotherapy. She was frequently inpatient in the hospital, receiving some of our most intensive IV therapy. This was a very trying time for Addison's mother; since her daughter's diagnosis and for weeks before, Addison had experienced non-stop, intense nerve pain.
Nerve pain is unlike other kinds of pain in that it is usually sharp, shooting, and often sudden. Not the kind of pain you would want to have to manage in a three year old.
However, sometime in January (about four months after radiation) Addison's pain had resided, and her neurologic function had improved enough that with aggressive physical therapy and a walker, she was actually able to walk on her own again. Which again was a relief for her mother, who had frequently been carrying around a large three year old.
Amazing, what a kid's spinal cord can do. Seems like adults lose function and never can regain it. (This, in my opinion, is only one of the many things that make children more like amphibians than people.) Really pretty astounding.
Addison then enjoyed a few months of improved function, bowel and urinary continence, and a relatively normal life. She even smiled and talked with me during one of her admissions- the first time that had happened since I'd met her.
In that respect, Addison was fairly normal. Some toddler and preschool aged children do continue to interact normally after a diagnosis of cancer; however, there are definitely an equal or higher number of children that regress. Whether from fear, anger, grief, or an inability to understand and cope with their diagnoses, many children in this age group simply stop talking to anyone other than their families. A few stop talking at all.
Addison had been in the former group; until her condition improved, and she emerged from her shell. It was then I saw the Addison none of us had ever known.
After all, living a pain-free, relatively normal life had been out of her reach for over 4 months. It was a glimmer of hope in a a desert for a devastated family.
A glimmer that vanished just eight weeks later.
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