My son Karson was diagnosed with a posterior fossa ependymoma brain tumor on June 3, 2024. Getting that diagnosis changed our whole lives. He was having some symptoms before he got diagnosed. He was vomiting every morning about two weeks prior to his diagnosis, and he was also tilting his head to the side.
We took him to an urgent care, and they told us that he had strep throat, and that could be what was causing him to vomit. They said Karson tilting his head could be due to him having a crick in his neck, so we gave him the amoxicillin he was prescribed for the 10 days. He was still vomiting every morning, and he was still holding his head to the side so then I decided to take him to a pediatrician.
When I told the pediatrician all the signs, she very bluntly told me that because of some of the signs he has had she automatically thought it was a brain tumor. But because I said no to him being lethargic and his eyes not rolling in the back of his head, she thought he just had a really bad sinus infection, so she prescribed him a bunch of medicines.
Later that evening, after taking the medication, he went to take a nap and went completely unconscious. I rushed him to the emergency room, and that’s where they found the brain tumor after doing a CT scan. We rushed him to the nearest children’s hospital here in Oklahoma, and they immediately got him in there and put an EVD tube in his head to get the pressure off of his brain, and then it just kind of went from there.
He went through chemo and radiation. This experience changed our lives so much. We had to be away from our other kids, and they had to stay at other people’s houses so that we could be at the hospital with Karson. It tested us financially, emotionally, and in every way you can think of.
Karson actually ended up passing away on May 30, 2025, because he just couldn’t fight it any longer. Cancer won this time. Brain tumors are very traumatic to everybody.
