Barb Bohrer

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.  On April 1st Mom went into the Hazen Clinic- she was having left sided weakness, numbness and pain in the back of head/neck and some slight subtle stumbling that she woke up with on Sunday morning.  She was thinking it was a pinched nerve or something. They did a CT scan and found out that she had a Mass of some sort in the spinal cord/brain stem.  She was transferred to Bismarck by ambulance where they did an MRI. Dr. Belanger (neurosurgeon) at Sanford informed us he was unable to do anything with it as the location and such were risky and rare.  He referred us to Mayo- We met with Dr. Ruff (neurologist) and Dr. Krauss (neurosurgeon) on April 8th.  We found out its a Central Nervous System Tumor. Either a astrocytoma or Ependymoma; unfortunately he was also not willing to do surgery as the location was not ideal and she needed someone else more specialized. He referred us to Dr. Fredric Meyer.  With the storm and schedules we met with him Wednesday April 24th and this journey began. Our options were shitty.  The location of the tumor is inside the spinal cord way up high by/in with the brain stem. The opening/cutting of the spinal cord area alone has huge risks for walking and motor function. The front of the tumor is pressed against the area that controls breathing and swallowing. Surgery has huge risks but it at least gives her a chance.  The other option was to not operate and he said the outcome was the same as surgery's worst case scenario and was a guarantee not if but when. She would slowly lose all function until it took her. As a family we decided she is so strong and tough and amazing and we needed to try.  Surgery Thursday April 25.