It was an ordinary Monday morning last fall when 11-year-old Isaac left for school. He’d been in New York with his family over the weekend for a wedding and then spent Sunday evening with his parents at a church festival.  

Isaac’s mom, Crystal, was working from their home in Mason, OH, that day when she received a call from the school nurse at 3 p.m. “She said that Isaac was in the office sick, that he’d been vomiting, but she didn’t seem too concerned,” Crystal said. 

Crystal picked Isaac up from school and, when they got home, took him downstairs to the basement. Isaac is the youngest of four kids, and Crystal’s older daughter had a history of migraines that darkness seemed to help, so Crystal hoped it might help Isaac, too.

“He was just consistently vomiting,” she said, “but I thought it looked like a migraine.” The two stayed in the basement for the next few hours, with Crystal setting an 8 p.m. deadline to go to the emergency department if Isaac didn’t improve by that time.

Eight o’clock came and went, and Isaac didn’t improve, so Crystal led him outside to the car. “I noticed he seemed a bit off-balance,” she said. “He kind of bumped into the front headlight of the car. But I figured it was because he was suffering from a terrible migraine and was completely dehydrated.

When they arrived at Cincinnati Children’s emergency department, Isaac was treated for a migraine. But then a doctor made a “lifesaving” choice, Crystal said. The doctor was prompted to take a closer look at Isaac when one of the nurses mentioned that, while he was treating Isaac for a migraine, he “didn’t like” the way the patient looked.

“I remember looking at Isaac and noting that he clearly didn’t feel well,” Dr. Babcock said. “He was really pale. I didn’t like it, and I wasn’t 100% sure what we were dealing with, so I decided to send him for a CT scan to give us peace of mind.” She added, “When one of your experienced nurses says a patient doesn’t look right, you pay attention.”

While recovering in the hospital, Isaac focused on various types of physical and occupational therapy.  What happened next is something Crystal will never forget: A social worker sat her down to explain that Isaac’s CT scan showed a mass in his brain had hemorrhaged, and he’d have to be flown by helicopter to Cincinnati Children’s for emergency surgery to relieve the pressure.  “It was like something out of a movie,” Crystal said. “It was a seven-minute flight, and I really have no memory of it.”  Around 2:15 am on Sept. 13, 2022 surgery was performed to decrease the pressure the hemorrhage was causing on Isaac’s brain.

The tumor was roughly the size of a baseball, and appeared to be a high-grade glioma—a tumor that forms in the glial cells, which are cells found in the brain and spinal cord. Tumors that are “high grade” are fast-growing and spread quickly through brain tissue. 

“His symptom of having a tumor that hemorrhaged is more common with highly aggressive, fast-growing lesions,” said his doctor. So was the location of Isaac’s tumor, which was in the temporal lobe, instead of the more common cerebellum. “When we saw those things on the scan, we were pretty concerned we were dealing with a high-grade tumor,” he added. Isaac’s doctors recommended complete surgical removal of the tumor, which was performed on Sept. 26. 

After the surgery, his doctor prepared Crystal for the probability that Isaac would need radiation therapy. “The diagnosis wasn’t clear for several weeks,” he said. “We had to do specialized testing that took time to get back, but we were really concerned this was a high-grade tumor, so we were planning radiation while waiting on testing results. It was a lot of ups and downs and twists and turns. But we wanted to take the right steps to make sure we were delivering the right treatment." 

The diagnosis came on Nov. 3: It was a low-grade, slow-growing glioma—specifically a pilocytic astrocytoma, which is a brain tumor that develops in the brain’s neuron-supporting star-shaped cells, called astrocytes, a type of glial cell.

The testing that came back grouped Isaac’s tumor with lower-grade tumors, and Isaac’s team literally last-minute aborted the radiation plan and said let’s just watch him and treat him with nothing but surgery.

Today, three years later, Isaac is fully recovered and back to life as a typical boy. He’s playing basketball and golf, riding roller coasters and playing the drums—activities he’s always loved. “It’s like nothing happened,” Crystal said. “It’s amazing. He’s back to being my lively, give-me-a-run-for-my-money kind of kid.”

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