Like most parents with small children, Ross and Mindy Deutsch were not alarmed when their six-year old son, Rory, complained of arm pain after a tennis activity in 1998. His parents thought it was just from all the concentrated exercise that day at the park.

Then, Rory started having signs that were more deteriorating. His wrist went limp… he could not make a fist, or move his wrist without, first, raising his arm.

The symptoms Rory had caused the doctors and neurosurgeons to consider a number of possibilities, including a stroke, or even a virus; they thought a blockage of some sort was causing the difficulties, and, of course, they feared a cancerous brain tumor.

It’s difficult to assign any single symptom as a sign of a brain tumor, notes the Mayo Clinic website. Obviously, the size of the tumor, its location and how fast it’s growing all converge to tell the story.

Normally, the list of common markers might include a pattern of unique headaches, or headaches that come on with more frequency and severity.

Symptoms that might signal a cancerous brain tumor are:

• Unexplained nausea or vomiting
• Vision problems, such as blurred vision, double vision or loss of peripheral vision
• Gradual loss of sensation or movement in an arm or a leg
• Difficulty with balance
• Speech difficulties
• Confusion in everyday matters
• Personality or behavior changes
• Seizures, especially in someone who doesn’t have a history of seizures
• Hearing problems

Rory Deutsch died five months after his diagnosis. Ross and Mindy Deutsch decided to form the Rory David Deutsch Foundation immediately after their son’s death. Their mission was to raise funds through medical research to cure pediatric brain cancer.

Contact us to learn how you can host a benefit in your community to raise funds; if you want to contribute, the website makes it easy to handle your donations.

 

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