My 5 year old Son had Hodgkins Lymphoma, Cancer.
My 5 year old Son had Hodgkins Lymphoma, Cancer. Hodgkins Lymphoma presents as swollen lymph nodes in five year old boy in Alabama. My Five Year old Child had Cancer. Childrens Hospital of Alabama was the hospital that treated my son. Fourteen Years ago I noticed swollen nodes with my son brushing his teeth. I watched them for a few weeks seeing if they reduced in size. When the Nodes never reduced in size I took him to his pediatrician. We had the best pediatrician, Dr Glassgow (he has since retired) at Greenville Pediatrics BrookHighland.
Dr Glassgow ran some blood work and didn't see anything that would suggest cancer. He later told me in all his years he has never seen Lymphoma in a child. He referred us out to our ENT Dr Shirley. Dr. Shirley has since opened his own practice and has a state of the art facility ENT for Kids Alabama. We have used him for years now at this point. With Wilson he decided it was best to remove a node and test it for cancer. The Node that he removed was golf ball size. On March 18, 2009 we were told our son had Hodgkins Lymphoma, my FIVE YEAR OLD CHILD had Cancer.
I started a page on Caringbridge https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/wilsonrowlen to inform all of how he was doing. I had so many people who wanted to love and support us through this. Wilson enjoyed reading peoples comments and I enjoyed having a place to vent.
You might wonder why after ALL of these years I am writing about this again. Well, it was my most popular blog post on my last blog and now that I have accidentally deleted all of my posts it's gone. I wanted to get the images back up cause I know when I was searching for information nothing I found was good. Like normal everyone knows most people just post BAD things and BAD reviews on the internet. Rarely do you see good positive posts. Not that I can make a post about my 5 year old having Cancer positive BUT I can tell you that he's a happy, healthy 19 year old now. He has held the same job for almost three years and is attending college with hopes to transfer to the University of Alabama
So my best advice to anyone seeing these images is to know. Is to start with your pediatrician and if you don't feel satisfied with the answers go to a ENT. Childrens Hospital of Alabama is a an amazing facility and we are lucky to live very close to it. The doctors and nurses in the Cancer and Blood Disorders Clinics were the absolute best. Wilson still goes to appointments yearly at Clinic 8.
I attached a few images to show you a little about Wilson's journey. I love the image of him with a black background he had the biggest round bald head, lol. Childrens Hospitals Patient program Hope and Cope asked to use the image on their flyers at the time. Years later it still popped up frequently on the tvs in patients rooms telling parents of added support options. I love that he was able to be a part of that.