Reid's headaches started shortly after his 7th birthday. They would come and go so quickly, I didn't think any thing of it, until the day he got dizzy and threw up. I took him to the urgent care clinic here in town, and the Doctor said it was just his allergies. I knew better. I scheduled him an appointment with his primary care doctor the next day, his CT scan was almost a week later. The radiologist let me know that his scan was abnormal, I knew it was a growth, but it wasn't until the next day, that I heard the words no parent should ever hear. Reid has a brain tumor. Its in his pons. A diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma. It is malignant. There is no cure, and there's no way to know how long.

Because Reid didn't have typical symptoms of this nasty tumor, he sailed through his 6 weeks of radiation, thinking he was getting "scans" every time he went, he jumped right up on the table, got his treatment and away we went. It was hard at times to remember that he had a brain tumor, hard to see that this precious boy was terminal.

His post radiation scan showed a normal pons. The tumor had been reduced to nothing, we were full of hope that our Reid would be different. And he was, until his headaches returned two days after Thanksgiving. Along with the headaches, he started having trouble walking, was really tired, and started drooling. His make a wish trip to Hawaii in December of 09 came just in the nick of time. We enjoyed a beautiful trip, and when we returned, more symptoms appeared. He couldn't eat, couldn't walk, struggled to use the restroom, and had trouble talking.

He spent a few days in the hospital after an albuterol treatment loosened his phlegm so much he started drowning in it. We had a NG tube placed, and denied a surgery that would relieve the fluid pressure in his head. The neurosurgeon said that with this tumor, the death from pressure would come quicker and be easier than the death from the actual tumor. We didn't want to prolong his pain.

Reid celebrated his 8th birthday a few days early completely surrounded by family and friends, and 13 days later, as he lay in my bed, he took his last breath.

We vowed to free our sweet little boy from that tumor, so we donated his brain for research, along with his corneas, and his heart valves.

For almost a year we fought for him, and even though he didn't survive, we will not stop fighting. We will never stop ......... ever.