DISQUS

TracyG · 4 months ago

Hello.
My son started having pain in his upper back when he was 2.5 at night between the hours of 1-5 a.m. After multiple visits to his pediatrician who wrote it off as growing pains, which I didn't totally agree with because I remember as a child having growing pains in my legs not my upper back. But I was trusting the Dr. in that she knew more than I did so I tried to convince myself she was right until he was on a train ride at the fair at 3.5yrs. and when it started off it jerked and he immediately started crying. The painful cry that all us mothers know.
I knew something wasn't right so I took him back to the Dr. and told her what had happend and she had him bend over to touch his toes and noticed a slight curvature opposite of scoliosis. She immediatly scheduled him for an xray which did show some curvature and a small white blob on his thorasic spine. We were scheduled two days later with a orthopedist at a childrens hospital who requested an MRI,bone scan and CT. The scans showed that something was definatly not right so they sent us 4 hours away to a Cancer Center. Which the name alone scared us to death! My son had a whole team of wonderful docters there waiting to meet him and review his scans and after that they had decided it was an Osteoid Osteoma. I was a bit reserved in my cheer because I felt they could not make a definate decision unless they did a biopsy but then again I figured they knew what they were doing. They also informed me that the tumor should not get any larger as it was already at the maximum size but they wanted him to have a MRI every three months to monitor it.
So three months go by and he goes in for the MRI and I get a call from his Pediatrician in hysterics because the hospital that did the biopsy had sent the results to her since she was the referring physician. She told me that the radiologist had told her that the tumor had gotten progressively larger. I was beside myself and immediatley requested the scan to be sent to the cancer center dr.'s. They noticed a small change compared to the other scans. So to ease any doubts they orderd a biopsy which was a huge relief because I felt this way we would know 100% that it was not cancer. The results came back as an Osteoma. What a relief! My son still has to have an MRI done every three months just to monitor it. The Dr.'s don't want to do surgery because of the tumor being so close to the spine.
He is now 6 years old and still wakes me up every night for either Motrin (8 hr. relief) or Tylenol (4 hr relief). It breaks my heart that he is going through this it has limited him in so many ways. He gets upset when he can't ride the go carts, play football,soccer,baseball or just plain out horse play with other kids. I am hoping and praying every day that he will beat the odds and the tumor will just go away.
My son is the "youngest" child that the specialists have heard of and I would really like some input from anyone that has had a thorasic spine osteoma and had it removed.
Please feel free to email me. [email]racytayg@yahoo.com[/email]

SimoneIcough · 4 months ago

Hola Tracy

Your poor son suffering with Osteoid Osteoma, have there been any signs of Scoliosis developing, or are you going to have to wait until puberty? Did you download the PDF also which is more comprehensive?

I wish your son all the best and if I find any breakthroughs regarding Osteoid Osteoma I will report here on the blog for you :)

Keep in touch and all the best to the little man, he is doing great xx