Nico's Story

Something unexpected happened to me when I was seven years old. It made my life different forever. I found out that I had brain cancer.

"How?" you ask.

I would like to share my experience with you.

I constantly was having headaches and vomiting. I went to lots of doctors. They thought I was lactose intolerant. I stopped eating dairy products all together. My mom wrote a letter to the doctors. It was very important. They ordered a CAT-SCAN.

During the CAT-SCAN they found a tumor. The tumor was the size of a plum and on my cerebellum. The doctors didn't know what it was at first. Then they found out it was cancer. They told my parents and my parents told me.

On December 5, 2000, I went to Sunrise Hospital. Two days later, I had my surgery. I said goodbye to my family. That was hard to do. My doctor was Dr. Anson. Well, there were lots of them, but he was my main doctor. I put the mask on and then I was out cold. My doctors told what happened to my parents. The tumor was so big they had to cut it up with a knife, but they had to be careful not to cut my brain.

In Three days later, I opened my eyes and I saw my dad. I tried to move, but I could not. I couldn't even talk. Then, I heard him talking, but I couldn't respond. I had to be fed through an IV. Throughout the 20 days, I had lots of visitors. Then, my dad and I developed a language to talk without words. We were finally able to communicate. Mouth open if "yes" and closed if "no". I was able to eat vanilla ice cream.

On Christmas Eve, I was able to go home. It felt great to be going home. On Christmas, my brother and I got lots of presents. Then Frankie got a cash register. When he played with it, he pressed a button and it made a noise that sounded like a horse. I made my first noise, it was laughter. After that, he kept pressing it. I kept laughing and laughing.”

Over the years, I had to learn to talk again. I had to learn to move all of my body parts again. I went to therapy over the years. I was home schooled for a year. I get better every day.