Alex's Story

Welcome to Alexander Singleton's Web page! Alex was born December 27, 2003 weighing in at 8lbs., 6oz in good health. On Wednesday, October 13th, he went in for 9 month-Well Baby check-up and the pediatrician found a hard mass on his right side during a routine abdominal check. She had one of her colleagues double check and she agreed there was 'something' there. We were shocked...I cried on my way to the Las Colinas Medical Center, not knowing what could possibly be wrong with my perfectly healthy little baby. Alex did okay during the sonogram and was sent back to the pediatricians office for the results. The results came back and our pediatrician gave us the 'bad news'. She sent us immediately to Children's Medical Center-Dallas for further testing.

Two days later, Friday, October 15th, 2004, Alex had his right kidney and tumor removed. He also had a port put in his chest under his skin. The port is used to easily administer chemotherapy. Alex went through the surgery great and stayed in the hospital to recover from the surgery until Thursday, Oct. 21st. While in the hospital he had a follow-up CT scan to make sure nothing had spread to the lungs. The tests were inconclusive because the doctors said during surgery, infants' lungs often times collapse and can show up as gray areas on a follow-up scan...so we had to wait a week and have another scan, Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2004. (The CT scans are always quite an ordeal as they always have to put him 'under' and it's scary to watch your infant, who has no clue, go from smiling at you to zoning out and sleeping.) But Alex did great and the lung scan can out clear. Also the pathologist report came through as a STAGE I, WILMS' TUMOR, FAVORABLE HISTOLOGY.



ALEX HAS BEEN CANCER-FREE SINCE TUMOR WAS REMOVED 10/04. PRAISE BE TO GOD FOR HIS CONTINUED GOOD HEALTH.

Journal

Tuesday, May 5, 2009 3:38 PM CDT

Sorry for the long delay in updates...life has been very good for Alex and our family.

Alex had successful hernia surgery last April 2008. He ended up having hernias on both sides of his testicle area - common in young boys that usually corrects itself as they grow older but Alex was 4 and it still wasn't corrected - thus the surgery. I guess it was caused by all that screaming when he was in the hospital with his cancer...oh well, we can guess all day what caused it, but it needed to be corrected.

On the surgery day, at Children's Hospital they put Alex out with flavored smelling gas masks. I think he choose the strawberry smelling mask. I was extremely diligent to talk with the anesthiologist about making sure not to use ANY drugs that would be nephro-toxic - toxic to his one kidney. When the surgery was done I got a list of the drugs used just to keep in Alex's file for future reference.

The doctor cut one side open and then scoped over and looked at the other side before cutting both sides of his abdomen open to check for hernias on both sides, which there were. The doctor repaired the areas and surgery went as expected. So he has 2 more scars on his body, with a total of 4.

In the recovery area, Alex was acting really weird, hoarse cough, eyes opened and closed but looking in a coma state and eyes twitting at times...it was odd and worrisome to mom....since he wasn't responding to my words, I put on his favorite music in headphones - Go Diego Go and his sleepy eyes opened up and he became alert with his favorite tunes...LOL! I was glad to have brought them. We spend the rest of the afternoon at the hospital, due to the fact that we couldn't get him to go to the bathroom. Right when we thought they were going to have to put catherder in him, with a lot of prayer and walking around - Alex went to the bathroom - PRAISE THE LORD! We finally were released from the hospital.

Alex's follow-up visit with the urologist showed everything to be healing just fine! Yeah!

Hospital Information:

Patient Room: currently outpatient

Children's Medical Center
1935 Motor Street
Dallas, TX, 75235
214-456-2382

Links:

E-mail Author: hrbsingleton@yahoo.com

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