Background - after brain tumor

It was around October 2009 when I felt something was not normal. He started to fall down alot and his walking became very wobbly and unsteady. Initially, we thought it was one of the medication he was taking that made him to walk wobbly. However, his walking became more wobbly and unsteady even with stopping the medication. He became more fussy and appeared tired more, wanting to lie down more. At the same time, I realized his head size had gotten so much bigger. All these doctor's appointments, they measured his head and noticed his head was getting bigger but none of doctors noticed something wrong with it. They probably thought that his brain was growing with good nutrition that he was getting through the G-tube. Well, we all thought that way...

By December 2009, his worsening symptoms made me worried enough to start thinking about hydrocephalus which is a condition that water accumulates in the brain ventricles causing many problems that are similar to problems that Jason had. On January 20, 2010, I took Jason to his pediatrician and discussed my concerns, specially about possible hydrocephalus. Jason's pediatrician ordered CT scan of the brain on the same day and later that day we found out that Jason had a 4cm brain tumor in his 3rd ventricle of his brain and that was causing severe hydrocephalus. Jason's pediatrician quickly made appointment with a neurosurgeon at the Children's National medical center. Next day, on January 21, 2010 after seeing the neurosurgeon, Jason was immediately admitted to the PICU (pediatric ICU). Everything happened so quickly from that day...They found that his tumor was already spread to his spinal cord and these little tumors on the spinal cord were inoperable due to their location and being so many. He had open brain surgery to partially remove his tumor in the brain and get enough tissue samples for biopsy to find out exactly what type of brain tumor he had.  After surgery, he had a temporary drain (called EVD) in his brain to relieve pressure from hydrocephalus but he ended up having 2nd surgery to put a VP shunt which is a permanent drainage system that drains water accumulation in his brain to his peritonium (inside belly).  He will need to have this shunt for rest of his life.  The biopsy result came back as grade 1 pilocytic astrocytoma which is a benign tumor.  We're relieved that his tumor was benign but like his oncologist said, "there is nothing benign about having a brain tumor".  Even though tumor's pathology may be "benign", he has a long battle in front of him.  He also had a surgery to place a central iv line called "porta-cath" to be used for his chemotherapy.  After almost 2.5 weeks of hospitalization at the Children's national medical center, he came home on February 8, 2010.