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Evelyn Roy gets a hug from her cousin Makayla Harper at the Roys' home
Evelyn Roy, 14, was diagnosed with a brain tumor at age 7. In May she had surgery, and now the tumor is gone.
Teresa Roy carries pictures |
By CATHY DYSON
Teresa Roy keeps two pictures in her pocket.
One shows her daughter's brain scan on May 19. There's a white blob--a tumor the doctor described as the size of a tangerine--right behind her eyes.
The second scan was done on May 21, hours after 14-year-old Evelyn's surgery. In that photo, there's not a single speck of white where the tumor had been.
Evelyn's mother passes the photos around to put things in perspective when someone at home or work is having a bad day.
"We look at each other and say: 'The tumor's gone. How bad can it be?'" she said.
After dealing with the side effects of a brain tumor for half her life, Evelyn and her family, who live in the Passapatanzy area of King George County, finally have a reason to celebrate.
"We won the tumor lottery," her mother said.
GAMUT OF TREATMENTS
Evelyn was 7 when she was diagnosed with an optic pathway glioma. Her mother, a single parent, suspects Evelyn had it all her life, given her symptoms.
"I don't remember not having one," Evelyn said.
Her type of tumor was slow-growing and benign, but dangerous because of its location, said Dr. Gary Tye, a neurosurgeon at VCU Medical Center in Richmond, where Evelyn was treated.
After her diagnosis in 2002, Evelyn had various procedures to reduce the tumor and the cysts that popped up on it.
Doctors removed what they could of the tumor without damaging nearby nerves.
It was the first of four times Evelyn's skull would be cut open for treatment.
She had chemotherapy for 18 months. During all of her second-grade year and half of third grade, she was so sick from the treatments that she missed a week of school every month.
She had radiation, then a procedure in which a radioactive element was placed inside the tumor to kill it, Tye said.
Despite the treatments, the cysts kept filling up with fluid. That caused hydrocephalus, or water on the brain.
The liquid put pressure on other tissues and produced painful headaches and vomiting--symptoms Evelyn suffered from for most of her life.
Once, a cyst was so full that "brain fluid shot across the room" when the doctor popped it, Evelyn's mother said, enjoying the graphic description.
"You can stop right there," Evelyn told her mother. "That's nasty."
Most tumors like Evelyn's respond to radiation and chemo, but hers did not. As the tumor slowly grew, cysts continued to fill and problems with vision, balance and headaches persisted.
Tye decided it was time for a more aggressive--and difficult--approach.
"If you've got other guns in your armory, so to speak, you want to try those first and work your way up to the more invasive, risky stuff," he said.
A DIFFICULT SURGERY
Tye decided to "debulk" the tumor, or pick away as much of it as he could. The problem was, tumors in the optic pathway are difficult to reach because of blood vessels and nerves in the way, said JoAnn Tillett, a nurse who has worked with Evelyn since her diagnosis.
Tye couldn't see the whole tumor, so he had to feel his way along with surgical instruments and delineate tumor from nerve. Experience helped him tell the difference, he said.
"It was a long day in the operating room, but Dr. Tye was able to pick and pick and get it all out," Tillett said.
The doctor didn't know what remained of the tumor, so he requested a brain scan hours after Evelyn came out of recovery.
She wasn't feeling too hot, but the teenager, who has always been a trouper, according to those around her, went along with it.
When her family saw the results the next day, they couldn't believe it.
"My mom almost fell over on the floor," Roy said about her mother, Jeanette Kendig, who lives with the Roys.
"I was going to be ecstatic if he got 50 percent," Roy said. "I looked at Dr. Tye and said, 'Are you telling me it's over?'"
"He was pretty impressed with himself," Roy said.
"As he should have been," Kendig added.
Tye modestly said that "it went much better than expected," but his nurse was more expressive.
"Oh my gosh, it was just amazing," she said. "Dr. Tye is a very talented surgeon, and I think even he was amazed at how wonderful it looked.
"A little divine intervention goes a long way."
'A WALKING MIRACLE'
Roy hasn't kept her good news to herself. She's a pharmacy technician at the CVS near Mary Washington Hospital, and she has shown lots of customers her daughter's brain scans.
"They're all very ecstatic and relieved and happy for her," said Meredith Clarke, a fellow technician.
Family friend Carolyn Lumpkin often took care of Evelyn's twin brother, Joseph, while Evelyn was hospitalized. She said Evelyn's positive attitude through nausea, needles and having her head shaved inspired those around her.
"I know she had to be scared at times, and of course she had questions just like any child would, but Evelyn made us keep going," Lumpkin said. "It was just her attitude, that everything's going to be fine.
"I think Evelyn's a walking miracle."
She'll always carry scars from her tumor, inside and out. She suffers from short-term memory loss and can't process information quickly.
The pressure on her pituitary gland caused a form of diabetes, for which she'll always take medicine.
"If that's the worst we have to deal with, I'll take it," her mother said.
Evelyn will continue to get regular brain scans to see if the tumor returns. But even if it did, it would take years to get as large as what was removed, the nurse said.
Evelyn and her family believe the worst is behind them. This fall, she'll start ninth grade at South Stafford Christian School, where she'll be in smaller classes and get the individual attention she needs.
"Every once in a while, I stop and think, 'I don't have a tumor anymore,'" she said, smiling. "I'm starting off a new year, I'm starting a new school. I feel like I can turn things around."
Cathy Dyson: 540/374-5425
Email: cdyson@freelancestar.com
