Posted Oct 28, 2007 1:07am
10-27-07 We are going into our second day at Phoenix Children’s
Hospital. Last night baby Easton Thomas Hatch was brought over by
ambulance after discovering a large mass on the left side of his
brain by a CT scan performed at Banner Desert Hospital. Once we
arrived we were greeted by a team of highly respected doctors and
nurses who later explained to us that the large mass is a brain
tumor. Later that day an MRI was done to determine the unknown in
regards to the severity of the tumor and after the MRI we met with
the team built up of neurologist, neurosurgeons, & oncologist.
It was at this time that we were informed that the tumor had spread
thru Easton’s brain and down along his spinal cord. It has been a
slow growing tumor that has been there a while. Monday morning at
9:30 AM they will perform another MRI which will serve as a type of
map to guide the surgeons. From there they will take him
immediately to surgery where a biopsy will be performed to remove a
sample of the tumor, test and discover what type of cancer it is,
and what treatments and options are available. I can't believe that
with the exception of this week my little boy has been so happy and
joyful while this trauma has been affecting his precious little
body. What an amazing spirit that emerges from my 13 month old
baby.
The support from the doctors, staff, family and friends has been
overwhelming. So many people are so willing to help us with any and
all of our needs. Easton has been receiving steroids to try and
help with some of the swelling on some of the tumors. Till now he
has only received 1 dose of Tylenol for the pain. The pressure from
the tumor down by his brain stem is causing him more discomfort. He
has been vomiting more and his heart rate has been dropping, and
this may result in an emergency surgery. In the brain there is a
tube that releases the brain fluid and the tumor has pushed up
against it so that it can not be released. That is what is causing
the vomiting and decrease in heart rate, and if needed the surgery
would allow the fluid an alternate route by which to be released.
Basically it is a wait and see game. We love all of you and
appreciate all of your support. We will update as information comes
our way. Please continue to keep Easton in your prayers as this is
not in our hand and he needs all the help our Heavenly Father can
give him.
Posted Oct 29, 2007 12:50am
10/28/07 Hello friends and family. We would like to begin by
thanking everyone for their thoughts and prayers on behalf of our
little boy. We know that most of you reading this along with
numerous others in several countries joined us in a special fast
today. It is impossible for us to adequately express our gratitude
for the outpouring of love we have felt. We are still at the
beginning of this ordeal and will go through much more before this
is over, but for the first time have begin to feel some level of
peacefulness. Please continue to keep him in your thoughts and
prayers as he goes in for his biopsy surgery tomorrow, Monday,
morning.
Today has been a much better and more peaceful day then the
previous two days. It has been the first day that news of Easton’s
situation has not worsened. Gratefully our father in heaven was
with our boy last night and the hydrocephalus (inability for the
fluid that is generated by the brain to drain) we feared did not
reach levels necessitating emergency surgery during the night.
Easton woke up this morning happy and much more active then he had
been the day before. Knowing we were desirous to have family
picture taken before the biopsy tomorrow, our bishop helped put us
in touch with a very kind and wonderful member of our ward who
works as a professional photographer. She came to the hospital this
morning and while accompanied by Easton’s nurses we were able to
leave the pediatric intensive care unit to go to a couple of nearby
rooms for photographs. The majority of the rest of the day was
spent visiting with family and friends. Once again this evening
Easton has been very active and playful, a sharp contrast to his
behavior of the previous night.
As we reflect upon the whirlwind of events over the past few
days we feel very blessed to have the outstanding team of doctors
and nurses whom have been taking care of Easton. The work they have
done and attention they provide to our boy has been amazing. We
know we have one of the best teams in the world.
Posted Oct 29, 2007 2:22pm
Hello all! I just wanted to give you another quick update on
Easton. He had an okay night but did throw up a little bit more.
This is a side effect of the Hydrocephalus. They just finished his
MRI which came back as we had expected. The tumors look the same
but the drainage tubes are swollen (again this is called
Hydrocephalus) and not draining as well as we would like. They have
decided to put in a shunt while they are doing the biopsy. This is
a tube that will go from his brain to his tummy. They said this is
one of the most common and low risk things that they do. They are
performing the biopsy and shunt as I write this. Together this
should take about 2.5 hours. We'll keep you posted.
Posted Oct 29, 2007 6:17pm
Easton is now back in his room with us. He is just now slowly
coming out from the anesthesia. Everything went very well with all
of the procedures they were performed.
The biopsy went smoothly and a sample of the tumor has been sent
to the lab to study. It will most likely be a few days before those
results come back and before we do anything further.
They also successfully put in his shunt and the pressure on his
brain is slowly draining. We hope that by later today he will begin
to act like himself again. If the shunt does what it should he
should not be nearly as lethargic and the throwing up should stop.
We are so excited to hopefully see him start smiling again. We
never before realized how much we take something as simple as a
smile from one of our sons for granted.
They also put in a pic-line. This is a more permanent form of
IV. Until now they have had to poke him with needles every few
hours to do new IVs and take blood for test. Easton has very
stubborn veins and most times they have had to poke him with
needles in 5 or 6 places to find a good vein. This has been very
painful and hard on him each time. It has not been much easier on
Kursty and I as we have tried to help hold him down and calm him
while they do this. The pic-line has been threaded into a vein on
his foot and up into his body through the vein where blood can be
drawn and medicines can be injected through much more easily
without having to poke him each time. The pic-line can stay in for
up to 18 months if necessary.
They also put in an art-line which they are removing right now
in front of me. The art-line was put into his artery before surgery
so they could monitor his blood pressure quickly and accurately. It
is also an excellent line to take blood from for tests. For this
reason they would prefer to leave it in. However, as I have been
typing this he has started to become active and it is obvious that
he will not leave it alone and might try to yank on it.
Kursty is holding him now and all seems to be well. We continue
to receive visitors and have numerous acts of service done on our
behalf. Thank you all so much. You are all amazing
Posted Oct 30, 2007 10:07am
Hello again everybody. It is early in the morning and Easton is
still sleeping but last night was the best night he has had here.
While they have not yet been able to do anything to treat the
tumor, the shunt they put in his brain seems to be providing him a
lot of relief. Prior to the shunt he could not keep anything as
simple as a few ice chips down for more then a couple seconds.
Yesterday afternoon they gradually started letting him have small
bottles of milk and juice. They have been increasing the amount he
could have in little increments. We are now up to full bottles.
This has been a huge relief for him as he has wanted food and water
so bad for the past few days. Once he finally got his first bottle
yesterday he pounded it and refused to give the bottle back even
after all the milk was gone. They said this morning he should be
okay to start eating whole foods again. He is going to be so happy
and excited about that.
Please continue to keep him in your thoughts and prayers. We
know this is key and vital to our boy’s success. One of our doctors
is coming in again to talk to us so I will update this again later
today.
Posted Oct 30, 2007 2:56pm
Hello all. We just wanted to let you know nothing major has
transpired this morning. We may have tried pushing the food with
him to soon and he did throw up a bit this morning so we have
backed off a bit and are only going with liquids in a bottle for
the time being. He had some exciting visitors this morning. A team
of hospital dogs in Halloween costumes came to see him. That was
fun for him. We will post that picture soon.
Posted Oct 30, 2007 10:15pm
Dr. Shafron was in earlier this afternoon to let us know that
overall he is very pleased with the progress Easton has made since
yesterday. We still haven't been very successful with getting him to
keep anything in his tummy but that is to be expected. The best way
that it has been described is that any time you have something in
your head that doesn't belong there naturally the pressure is going
to build and cause vomiting. On the bright side though the
swelling around his brain has gone down and the shunt that was put
in yesterday is draining the fluid in the brain as it is designed
to which makes the ventricles smaller. This is good news for us.
Still no word on the prognosis of the biopsy but we are hopeful
that we may know something tomorrow early morning, so we will keep
everyone posted. Thank you again for your continued thoughts and
prayers we love you all very much!
Posted Oct 31, 2007 6:54pm
Hello everyone. Sorry it has taken us so long to update you
today. We have had numerous different doctors in this morning and
have been taking some time this afternoon to digest and discuss
things while deciphering what everything means and what we plan to
do from here.
The results of the biopsy show that Easton has a primitive neuroectodermal tumor. This is one of the more common types of tumors
for small children to have. Over the upcoming days and weeks we
will be learning a great deal more about this but will attempt to
explain what we know at this point. As we mentioned earlier Easton
is beyond the point where surgery can repair him. The ideal course
of action at this point would be to treat the tumor with a
combination of radiation and chemotherapy. However, at his very
young age and due to the severity of the tumor radiation is not an
option as it would most likely kill him. The doctors feel at this
point our best option would be to treat him with chemotherapy for
the time being until he reaches an age where radiation therapy
might be possible. This is by any means a quick fix but will take
years to treat him. In the past the extended chemotherapy would
have been most likely too much for him to tolerate. What they do
now to strengthen small children through this is to take stem cells
from their bone marrow which they can put back into them later to
replenish what has been lost and destroyed as a result of the
chemotherapy. Chemotherapy will be very difficult and hard on him
and will require numerous lengthy stays at the hospital. However,
our doctors tell us that children are much more resilient and
respond better to chemotherapy then most adults. Fortunately,
Phoenix Children’s Hospital’s facilities are as good as any in the
country for this so we will not have to travel to get our boy
treatments.
Easton’s current condition does not seem to have changed much
since yesterday. He remains pretty lethargic and has thrown up once
or twice since yesterday. The doctors have determined that this is
no longer a result of the fluid drainage but is a result of the
tumor itself. We met with a speech pathologist a few moments ago to
see if his oral behaviors (eating/speaking) have been affected. So
far the appear not to have been. We are going to start mixing his
liquids with a thickening agent as this should make them a bit
easier for him to handle.
We are bracing ourselves for the drastic changes that are going
to be occurring in our lives and appreciate your thoughts and
prayers as we will be make many decisions in the upcoming weeks
about our little boy’s future. My brother Derek has been doing a
great deal of research on this type of tumor for us and might be a
good resource if any of you have questions. Thanks again for
everything everyone has done and continues to do.
Posted Nov 1, 2007 4:26pm
Today is a good day. Easton has been his normal happy playful
self and we are glad to have him feeling better than he has been.
We have posted some pictures that are very uplifting, be sure to
look at them. This morning started off with a G.F.R test. This test
will let them know if Easton's kidneys are healthy enough to deal
with the chemo therapy treatments. After that we went for a barium
swallow test. This test checks to make sure that he is still
maintaining his swallowing capabilities post surgery. We are
hopeful tomorrow that they will be able to surgically implant a
broviac, this is basically a long term iv that will remain with him
throughout the chemo-therapy, it will allow them to direct the
medicines to the location they need to go. Thank you all for your
continued love and support we will let you know more as soon as we
know anything.
p.s. We know that many of you have wanted to know if you can come
by and visit. Please realize that as would be the case with anyone
in our situation we have good days and bad, We would love to have
visitors and would ask that you please call Sean on his cell phone
prior to making the trip out here. If you do not know this number
please contact a family member and they will be more than willing
to provide you with it.
Posted Nov 3, 2007 12:28am
Today was a pretty low key day, I woke up about 7:30am and they
were giving Easton the hearing test to get a base line they can
compare with after the chemo-therapy begins. This will allow them to
keep an eye on how the chemo-therapy effects other organs in his
body such as kidneys, liver and hearing. They had to sedate him
prior to doing the test so he was pretty sleepy most of the day.
Originally I had mentioned that they plan to surgically implant
the broviac in his chest today. The surgery has been rescheduled
definitely for Tuesday at noon however they are hopeful that there
may be an opening on Monday. Dr. Etzel his oncologist will be back
in town Monday and will hopefully be able to answer some important
questions we have. Once again we appreciate the out poor of love
and support we have received we love you all very much.
Posted Nov 4, 2007 12:04am
today was another good day Easton was more awake and alert today
he has been better about eating as well, keeping it down is a whole
other story but we will take what we can get. He was on a role and
had been throw up free for almost 36 hours until 11am this morning.
So we started over again trying to get him to take more foods by
mouth since they will be taking him off his TPN tonight.
(nourishment through the iv)nothing new really to report I think we
are just sitting still now until monday. One favor I do have to ask
of everyone. Tomorrow is fast sunday please fast for our little boy
again as he needs all the help he can get. Thank you all so much we
love you.
Posted Nov 5, 2007 6:58pm
Hello Everyone,
Sorry there has been no recent update posted. Till today the
last couple of days have been spent primarily waiting. Last night
Easton was moved out of intensive care into a temporary room until
they ultimately move us up to the second floor with the other
chemotherapy patients. Our new room is very small and we share it
with another little girl so we are pretty cramped for space. We
have Easton’s crib in there, a reclining chair of sorts and that is
about all there is room for. Kursty and I are trading off nights at
the hospital with Easton so one of us can go home with Draysen. We
will probably be doing this from here on out. It is hard for Kursty
and I to have next to no time together now that I have gone back to
work, but it is a sacrifice we will make in a heartbeat for our
boy.
This morning they put the broviac (a semi-permanent IV that goes
from his chest to his heart) into Easton which will stay in him
throughout his chemotherapy. They are unable to start chemotherapy
till this has been in for 24 hours. So, we hope to get chemotherapy
started in the next day or so. Thanks again for everything.
Posted Nov 6, 2007 12:58pm
Nothing major to report yet today. Last night Kursty stayed at
the hospital with Easton. He was a bit fussy even after his pain
medication so he slept in the reclining chair with Kursty last
night. I think Kursty was just fine with that. We hope to hear more
on starting chemo today. I guess they are waiting on the results of
one more test to come back before we can begin. We are still
hopeful to start this today or tomorrow. Draysen is at the hospital
today keeping Easton and Kursty company.
Posted Nov 7, 2007 6:53pm
Last evening Kursty and I were able to meet with Easton’s
oncologist. We had already heard most of what he had to tell us
from other doctors. They are currently getting things ready to
start his therapy. We are keeping out fingers crossed that we will
get that started tomorrow or Friday. We had hoped to have therapy
underway by now, however there are a number of things which must
take place before that can happen. The first stage of his treatment
should take around 3-4 weeks. At that time we will evaluate his
progress and move on to the next step from there. He had another
pretty good night last night. Since they put him on a new medicine
a few days ago the vomiting has stopped.
Kursty, Draysen, and I are doing as well as could be hoped for
under the circumstances. Kursty spends the days at the hospital
while I go to work. Fortunately my office is only 8 miles from the
hospital which allows me get from work to the hospital relatively
quickly in the evening so we can spend a little time together
before one of us heads home. We rotate nights at home with Draysen
so we can make sure he gets as much attention from us as possible.
Draysen spends some days at the hospital and some days with family
or friends. It is hard to have so little family time together, but
we know that this is only temporary and soon we will be home as a
family again.
Posted Nov 8, 2007 9:46am
It looks like we will be able to get Easton’s treatments started
today. Last evening Easton was moved up to the second floor with
the other tumor/cancer children where he should stay now for the
next few weeks. This portion of the hospital is decorated more
brightly and seems to have a more positive vibe then the area we
have been for the past few days so we are glad for the move. The
doctors said that we will be starting the chemotherapy today. We
are very happy yet nervous to start therapy as we know this is
hopefully the next step to getting our boy better, yet we know how
difficult the therapy will be on him.
The past few days of waiting have been hard as we have seen
Easton continue to get a little worse each day. He doesn’t have a
lot of strength and can’t lift himself up on his arms or sit up any
longer. We can also see a big difference in him when we look into
his eyes. Please continue to keep him in your prayers.
Posted Nov 8, 2007 5:05pm
It looks like we will be starting the chemo very shortly this
afternoon. Easton had his echo cardiogram this morning and his
doctor ordered the first of his chemo medicine for this afternoon.
We are praying that his little body handles it okay. I was up at
the hospital during my lunch break visiting him and Kursty. She was
pulling him around the second floor in a little wagon she had made
a bed in for him. She is such a wonderful mother and takes such
good care of him there everyday. She makes Easton’s nurse’s job
easy.
We share the room with a 6 year old boy who is being treated for
leukemia I believe. Kursty said he and his parents seem like very
nice people. The room is a bit larger and Easton has a big window
next to his bed. Out the window we have good view of the
helicopters landing and taking off. Draysen will really enjoy
seeing that.
Posted Nov 9, 2007 2:50pm
I know many of you have already heard rumors of our night last
night so let me update you all as best as I can. About 6:40 last
night they finally had all of the prep work for Easton’s chemo
completed and gave him the first medicine treatment in IV form. We
have learned that the first few days of chemo are typically the
worst and the hardest so naturally we are very concerned and
anxious. One of the side effects of the medicine for the first few
days is very strong semi acidic urine. They gave him a medicine
prior to his chemo that will make him urinate frequently so we can
keep flushing this out as quickly as possible. To try to keep this
from causing Easton external harm we change his diaper at least
every hour or two through the night and day. The doctors and nurses
said the first unpleasant side effects would most likely not be too
bad that first night so I sent Kursty home to get some rest.
Throughout the night the nurses and I kept his diapers changed and
continued to watch him.
At about 4:00 this morning the nurse came in to check his
pupils. They do this about every four hours. Easton was very
unresponsive and his blood pressure had dropped a great deal. We
spent the next 15-20 minutes trying to wake him up, to get his
heart rate going, and his blood pressure up. We would move his arms
and legs a little but no matter what we tried we could not get him
to open his eyes and wake up. The nurses paged the on-call doctors
who were equally unsuccessful. They called his surgeon who ordered
an immediate CT scan. The CT scan showed that his brain appeared to
be hemorrhaging with blood around the tumor. They rushed him back
to the ICU where there were about 15 nurses and doctors waiting.
They went right to work getting him hooked up to a ventilator and
put an art line in so they could get him additional meds quickly.
They did numerous tests and scans while trying to keep myself and
Kursty as calm as possible. The surgeon arrived and went over the
CT scan with us to better explain what was going on. At this point
there are still a number of unknowns as to exactly what happened
but this is what we do know. Something was causing bleeding in the
area around the tumor. It could be the tumor its self bleeding or
something else. Either the blood, the pressure of the tumor, or a
combination of both were causing excess pressure on his brain which
they believe may have caused a seizure and in turn his
unresponsiveness. Dr. Schaffron’s biggest concern was that if he
did not become more alert and responsive in the next few hours,
emergency surgery would be necessary to remove a portion of the
tumor to reduce the pressure. The reason they did not do this to
begin with a couple of weeks ago when we first went in to the
hospital is because the tumor is in a bad location and very
extensive. This type of surgery would be extremely risky and
dangerous.
As the morning has continued to progress the doctors feel Easton
is beginning to stabilize. They will most likely do a CT scan again
this afternoon to see if the bleeding has stopped or if the blood
amount around the tumor has increased. Easton is still unresponsive
and has not woken up. However, they feel at this point this is more
due to the sedatives and medicines they gave him this morning while
they were stabilizing him and sticking all the tubes into him. They
plan to keep him in the ICU for at least a few days to see what
happens. They also want to keep the ventilator tubes in him to keep
him relaxed and hopefully give him as restful of a day today as
possible. Our oncologist wants to continue his chemo treatments
while in the ICU. Ideally the continued treatments will begin to
shrink the tumor making any sort of emergency surgery to relieve
the pressure unnecessary.
So for now Easton is stable and hanging in there. Please
continue to keep our son in your prayers.
Posted Nov 10, 2007 5:41am
As most of you already know our sweet baby boy Easton returned
home to be with his heavenly father this morning. Yesterday
afternoon the doctors came in and informed us that the results from
his MRI had come back and that his tumors had all dramatically
increased to about double their originally size. The doctors felt
and we felt that this was something incurable at this point and we
decided that the best thing to do for our little boy was to let him
return to heavenly father to be out of his pain. He quietly left us
in his sleep around 1:30am. We appreciate the continued love and
support and will update again as soon as funeral arrangements have
been made.
I have decided to update weekly not only on the status of the toy drive but also to share stories and memories of our little Easton so you all can get to know him! This picture was taken for his first birthday, this was four weeks before he was diagnosed and to look at him you would have never known anything was wrong with him especially with the constant smile that lit up his face. He was so content to just sit in his highchair enjoying the frosting off his cake, however as soon as he had licked off all the frosting he immediately found the perfect place for the cake, which was using it to decorate my floor! 
