My son (14) was diagnosed as having a brain tumor on Dec 21st :(. And my daughter (8) has been seeing the endocrinologist since January of this year for a pineal cyst - which forced her into precocious (early) puberty. I am wondering if this type of thing is hereditary? Why two children with these things going on?

Right now I feel overwhelmed and overtaken. Sean, my son, is having brain surgery today (6:30am) to remove the tumor. And Maurela, my daughter, has been having bloody noses, headaches and double vision for the past two weeks. I sometimes wonder if God realizes how "full" he can make our plates at times.

My thought is that I will call my daughter's endocrinologist tomorrow to report her symptoms. But then part of me wonders if I can even handle any more bad news at this time. It is just so hard. And I was supposed to have my surgery yesterday to remove cancer cells from my cervix but couldn't leave Sean due to the chance of him having another seizure. I can't take care of my kids if I am no good. Oh boy. Here I sit rambling when all I want to do is cry. People usually call me for the answers as I am the nurse in the family, but now here I am dumbfounded.

Thanks for listening/reading. Take care of yourselves. I really do appreciate having this board!

I am not sure if this is hereditary or anything and I dont think I can answer any of your questions. But I want to say how amazing you've been taking care of your children and although you have a lot on your plate, and with your situation, I think you're doing a good job balancing it out. Please remember to take good care of yourself because your children needs you a lot. I am sure they appreciate how much you've done for them.

Please take good care of yourself because you are just as important as your children. I hope the new year brings you and your family good health.

You CAN most definitely get thru this,believe me,you have absolutely no real idea of just how strong you are til you are put to the test,and you are right now.i didn't think i could handle everything that has been thrown at me with first my sons liver failure,transplant,a bi polar dx and then a severe brain injury,and this was on top of all of my many major medical problems,but i am still here,and am rather amazed at times that i am,really.you just do this becaue you have to,thats how you get thru it.i am amazed at what i was able to handle,as i never really considered myself to be all that strong,or as strong as i had to be in order to just deal with everything kind of crashing down around me.you WILL get thru this and be a much stronger person for it.trust me.and you DO have to take care of yourself,your right about that,if you are not at max you wont be any good to your kids.you will come up with a plan.somehow some way.the thing is,wjhen people used to offer their help to me,like if you need anything just call me type of stuff?i would not usually take them up on it.well,i finally came to the point where i did.hey,they are offering it to you so take them up on it when its offered.for anything that needs to be done at any time.you are not imposing,they offered their help to you first.all you are doing is allowing them to help you out when you need it most.once i started letting my friends and family start helping us out,things got much much better and easier for me personally to handle.i had people dropping things off at the bank when i couldn't get there myself,doing my grocery shopping since we were likeliving at the hospital when my son was there for over two months.my other son was at home kind of suffering thru all this with no food in the fridge,god i felt like such a horrid mom.so my sister took him grocery shopping for me.

it may not seem like alot but honestly,when you have sooo incredibly much to deal with,just having someone taking care of the little things really makes a huge difference on that 'load' you feel you are carrying.it helps to just relieve at least some of the pressure on you.ya know what i mean?and in this type of situation,every little bit helps,believe me.just trust in that you are doing the absolute best job you possibly can under some extreme circumstances.if you feel like having a good cry,by all means,go for it.it does make you feel better,really.been there many times too.

Now,as far as there being any actual connection between your daughter and your sons conditions?well that could be a yes and a no.while there could possibly be some sort of a genetic underlying predisposition for a specific type of trigger for just developing things in the brain,there would have to be some sort of actual real connection to the type or substance in the make up of the types of things that are being created,do you know what i mean?like with me,i have a tendency(predisposition) for possibly developing all kinds of vascular malformations just because of a kidney disease i have that made me born with naturally weaker vessel walls.so i have actually had a cavernous hemangioma grow(it was congenital)inside of my spinal cord.then last year,i developed a brain aneurysm.my son also has this predisposition for the very same reason.this is genetic in our case.so it IS possible to have some sort of underlying 'link' of some sort that would make it more likely for your children and possibly even yourself,to create certain things within your bodies.you would probably have to consult an actual genetics expert of some sort in order to really know for sure.but i am just saying given what i know about hereditary and genetic predisposition,just about anything really is possible if you go into it far enough ya know what i mean?but like i mentioned before,there would have to be some sort of either chemical make up or other actual link between something that is in both types of growths your children have in order to make the connection even possible.genetics can get really ***arre and confusing once you start diving into it.there are autosomal dominant conditions and resessive types.the PKD i have is an autosomal dominant one that just means only one parent has to have it in order to pass it on to a child.about a 50/50 chance that they will get it.a resessive means that both parents have to be carrying a specific gene in order for whatever it is to actually be created in any given child.

if you should ever get the opportunity,it would be worth your while to actually go back thru yours and your hubbys or the childrens fathers side of familys to see what has been there in past generations.you never know what may pop up.one big thing tho that i found out as we were trying to actually trace back this kidney disease thru my moms side of the family where it came from,is that years ago,many family members really did not tell alot of people about specific problems or medical issues.and of course,because of the lack of good screening and scanning techniques,alot of things were missed or not picked up til autopsy,if one was actually even done.

like with this PKD polycystic kidney disease we have in our family,the only real way anyone would know they actually had it specifically is with ultrasound or some other scan that would show the kidneys themselves.so of course,alotof our family members way back when did not even know they had it,but it had to be there in order to have been passed on thru the generations.but in your case right now,it would be worth possibly asking some questions of the specialists you now have to talk to and see what they say.who knows.

i hope things work out for all of you and your sons surgery all goes totally perfect today.just don't forget to take care of yourself and don;t be afraid to count on others when you feel a bit too overwhelmed.your family and friends probably DO want to do something to just feel like they are helping so letting them do things for you,no matter how small,well,let them do it for you.it will be one less thing that you yourself have to actually deal with.then you can concentrate on the more important things.take care,marcia