Mary and Matt House Matt House

Matthew and I can't tell you how much your prayers, time and encouragement means to us!   Matthew is an amazing man.  He is a gentle-spirit, kind-hearted and selfless.  We have 3 beautiful children together, Anthony, 10, Ben, 7 and Lilly, 5.  Matthew and I are MN natives but moved to Texas right after college and fell in love with Texas.  We did move back to MN for 10 years to be with family while we had our 3 kids but we love the  TX culture and the people and moved back 18 months ago JUNE 2015  to raise our family here.


Matthew started having an "off" feeling and some slight dizziness on Saturday, 10/1. He told me but we thought he was just dehydrated, hungry and stressed.  Matt is a fiance controller for Watson Chalin in McKinney and a lot of deadlines were approaching as well as getting ready for a big family move into our dream and forever home. During that week he started to noticed he was tripping over rugs or steps.  But no one really noticed except him. Late Friday night, 10/7 he told Mary he was feeling off still and noticing some tripping. Saturday, 10/8 Matthew went to ER around 1:30pm at Baylor McKinney and had a CT scan and MRI which showed a 2.3x2.1 cm mass in the right frontal lobe under his Motor cortex with moderate swelling. The MRI contrast showed enhancement of the tumor. 


10/9 Sunday- Matt had a full body CT scan at Baylor McKinney which showed some inconclusive spots on his liver and gallbladder. We noticed he struggled with movements more on left leg and they were more pronounced.  Matthews parents got to Dallas late Sunday night. Matt, Mary and Kathy, his mom got on the rode to Austin late that night.  Matthews sister is a Doctor in Minneapolis and had a connection with  Dr. Zui, a Nero surgeon in Austin that specializes in Matthews eloquent area of the brain.10/10 Mathew started to feel his left arm feel become weak and his limp became more pronounced.   We praise GOD that we got in first thing to see Dr Zui.  He's amazing and very kind.  We felt a sense of peace. God is Good.  We still didn't know if this tumor was cancer or an abscess or infection and wouldn't know what kind of tumor it is until they got into his brain.  We were hoping for surgery ASAP- because as soon the pathologist sees a turmor, even before testing it, they'll be able to know if it's the primary tumor or metastatic. Dr Ziu said that the full body scans have to be read by a radiaologist.  But he said many of the full body  scans that are clear , 15%  that come back clear on the scan won't show anything but there actually is a tumor somewhere else in the body but it's so small you can't see it.  And that is generally where it starts and goes to the brain. Most brain tumors are metastatic which means it's gone from one part of the body to the brain. Our original plan was to go  into surgery that week to remove it.  Dr Zui knows a neurosurgeon, Dr. Mickey, who we had also heard great reviews from others,  who works at UT Southwestern in Dallas with high success rates and excellent reviews so we decide to go see him on Tuesday and Dr. in Dallas to be close to our home and kids.Dr Zui told us the percent of not being able to move his left side after surgery is 15%. Of course there are other risks of having this surgery such as infection, bleeding and stroke. 90% success rate of  full removal.  We feel confident and decide to Drive back to Dallas to see Dr. Mickey the following day.Tuesday 


10/11 Matthew wakes up an can't walk.  We race to the ER at UT SouthWestern and they transport us to Zale Lipshy Cancer Center to see Dr. Mickey sooner that day that we planned.  We have another MRI that day which shows the tumor has grown already in 2 days.  Dr. Mickey is concerned so instead of doing surgery we decide we need to do a biopsy to figure out what we are dealing with first.  

Wed. 10/12 Biopsy shows Matthew has a stage 4 glioblastoma.  Dr. Mickey suggests it is too risky to operate so we begin radiation 5 days a week on Thurs. 10/13  and Temador chemo 7 days a week.  We return home with Matthew in a wheelchair and he is positive and ready to document a miracle.  
So far Matthew has not responded well to this treatment and he has been extremely nauseous, vomiting daily, terribly bad headaches, confused, sleeping over 18 hours a day.  He lost over 35 lbs in less that 3 weeks. 


On Friday, 11/4 Matthew vomited blood and we ended back in the ER at Mckinney Medical Center.  They admitted him to check for GI bleeding.  Sat. 11/5 Matthew started to decline and had a very hard time staying awake.  By abulance they transported him to UT Southwestern ICU.  He was very hard to wake up so and so they ran a CT scan and MRI which showed his entire right hemisphere and part of his left showing extreme swelling.  He has been there since and they have been giving him a high dose of steroids and salt saline drip.  He has been doing much better since then and we are praying for his swelling to go down completely.  Please pray for full body healing and peace to accept God's Will no matter what the outcome may be.Thank you to all the family and friends that are praying and please continue! Thank you for all the support, purchasing and bringing us items, watching our kids, driving them around and letting them spend the night!  We love you!!!!!