Prayers For Karter
written by Alyssa Denny
Karter was diagnosed with stage 4 Choroid Plexus Carcinoma, a brain tumor, at a few days shy of 5 months old. It was the size of a tennis ball in his little head. He went through 3 brain tumor removal surgeries- 2 back to back at only 5 months old. He started chemotherapy a few days later. Karter ended up with epilepsy after those surgeries and has had over 150 seizures in his life. He’s miraculously not had a seizure in over 2 1/2 years and has been off all meds since December of last year! He’s been through more than 250 rounds of chemotherapy and 4 different regimes of chemotherapy because his body gained immunity to some of them and stopped working. He was eligible for a clinical trial in 2017 that he stayed on for almost 2 years.
Karter is currently “stable” but lives with tumors in his brain and spine, but he is off of chemotherapy. He is kicking butt in kindergarten and has very minimal developmental and learning delays. He does receive PT, OT, and speech therapy at school to help him get back on track with all he's been through. He gets MRIs every 3 months and belly scans and labs every 3 months as well because of the genetic syndrome within our TP-53 gene (Li Fraumeni) that he, his twin brother, and I were born with that I unknowingly passed onto them in the womb. It makes them both at a much higher risk than average for cancer and tumors in their life, because it effects their tumor suppressor gene in their DNA, making us all more susceptible. We all go for scans routinely and are monitored closely due to this genetic syndrome we have.
Photo courtesy of Prayers for Karter
Photo courtesy of Prayers for Karter
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