Proceeds from the 2011 Charleroi Federal Little Great Race are going to Samantha Jo Simmons.
Samantha Jo Simmons is the only child of Douglas and Tonya Simmons. She was born six weeks premature and was in Magee Hospital NICU for ten days. When she was almost 5 months old she was diagnosed with low grade glioma which is tumors on her brain and spine. One of the tumors has caused her to go blind in her left eye. She has to go to Washington once a month to see an eye doctor. She has to have her good eye patched 2 - 3 hours a day to strengthen her bad eye. People from Early Intervention come to the house to help her get back on track with motor and vison skills. She is behind from being six weeks premature and the chemo also makes her weak.
Because of the tumors' central location and their involvement in the visual pathway, surgery is not an option. Radiation is also not an option because of the location and her age. The dose would be too high and it would be fatal, so she goes to Children's Hospital once a month for chemotherapy. The first chemotherapy is called carboplatin. The tumors usually respond for a while, but eventually they will need to be treated again.
Before every fourth treatment she gets an MRI to see how the tumors are reacting to the chemotherapy. On January 6, 2011 she had and MRI and they forund that the tumors have caused too much cerebrospinal fluid on her brain. They had to do a spinal tap to see how much pressure the excess fluid was causing. Normal pressure for an aduly is 20 and normal pressure for a child is 10. Samantha's pressure was 21 so they had to install a ventriculo-peritoneal shunt.
A ventriculo-peritoneal shunt is a soft tube that runs under the skin from the head, behind the ear, along the side of the neck, down the chest and into the abdomen. It drains the excess cerebrospinal fluid froom the ventricles in the brain and sends it into the abdomen. CSF is fluid that cushions and protects the brain.
One week after surgery, Samantha had to go back to Children's because she was extremely fussy and was barely eating. She was admitted to the hospital three times before they decided to remove the shunt. Since the removal on January 27, 2011, she is a completely different baby. She is so happy now and eats better.
Samantha has been through so much but she is the strongest, most fun-loving baby.