Kenny Louallen

Everyone wants to know WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED!!  About a year ago, Kenny began noticing some balance issues when catching with Chloe at softball practice.  He did not really think too much about it, but then started noticing some vision trouble while driving at night.  Slowly but surely he just quit driving at night, and there was no problem anymore.  Until there was!
 
In November, he went to see his doctor about the balance and vision problems, and she felt like he needed to see a neurologist.  So he got an appointment, which was originally scheduled for Feb. 15.  At the end of January, things got much worse, and we got him in to see someone sooner.  An MRI was ordered, and within 45 minutes of the MRI, my brother called to say that Kenny had a brain tumor.  Good news though.....it is a benign brain tumor.  We were scheduled to see a neurosurgeon that same day, but at the same time I began making other plans.  I knew we needed the best neurosurgeon we could find because Kenny's tumor was a big tumor, in a really bad place.  

On 2/8 we met with Dr. Reid Thompson at Vanderbilt.  He was the 3rd neurosurgeon we met with.  And he was without a doubt the one we needed.  In the 7 days that had passed since the diagnosis and the appointment with Dr. Thompson, Kenny lost his ability to walk without assistance as the day went on, and his ability to speak without really thinking about what he was trying to say.  Something needed to be done quickly, and Dr. Thompson, and Dr. Rivas at Vandy were the guys to do it!