Thank you for caring for our mom so much. We will use this page to help all of you stay up-to-date as much as we can. Mom has asked us to tell as many people as we can because she wants all the prayers she can get!
On February 4th, Mom woke up and noticed her vision was a little fuzzy. This was the first time she noticed any change or symptom. She had an eye doctor appointment already scheduled for the 8th and sensed she just needed new lenses. After her appointment, her eye doctor recommended Mom make an appointment with a neuro-ophthalmologist. After several attempts to make an appointment, she ended up back at her eye doctor who sent her to the ER for an MRI. This was on Wednesday, February 15th.
We received the results on Friday, February 17th that a thalamic mass was found on the MRI and she needed to follow-up with a neurologist. Mom's longtime family doctor, Dr. Weber, called and asked her to see him first on Monday. Her symptoms at this point included increased vision loss, slurred speech and some left-side paralysis. She was still walking on her own, still taking care of everyone around her and was worried about being a burden on anyone.
By Monday the 20th, her symptoms were increasingly worse and Dr. Weber got her into a neurologist that afternoon who then immediately admitted her thru the ER to Winthrop Hospital for additional tests. They did blood work, cat scans of her abdomen and upper chest and a new MRI. On Wednesday morning a neurosurgeon performed a biopsy. At that point, the doctors were not certain if mom had an abscess or a tumor. Unfortunately, the biopsy confirmed we were dealing with a tumor.
On Tuesday we received the sad news that the tumor is a grade IV glioblastoma buried deep in her thalamus and is inoperable. She is scheduled to begin daily radiation treatments on March 13, and will get radiation simultaneously with a chemo pill. Unfortunately, this is a very aggressive kind of tumor and mom is already experiencing significant losses in vision, mobility, strength, speech and thought processes. We humbly ask you to keep her in your prayers.
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