Michael Tergerson

Hi. My name is Michael Tergerson. Also, many people know me as Donny from my younger years. I am a very happily married man to my wife Krista, and have three beautiful children…Kelsi, Madison
and Tristan.  I am also blessed with beautiful friends and family around me that I am so very thankful for.   I wanted to get this site up before now, but some slightly major events have hindered the progress.  With that said, I’d like to share my story.  This is being written because in the middle of August 2016, I had a slight vision problem one afternoon trying to see my calculator for work.  I couldn’t see the numbers on the right side, so I looked up at a clock and had the same issue.  I was worrisome to say the least, so we immediately went to an optometrist.  They concluded possible ophthalmic migraines, but if the problem recurs, that we would need to get an MRI.  One week later, it persisted, I scheduled the MRI for Monday, August 22nd, 2016.  I received a call on Wednesday, August 24th (over Bluetooth by the way where my wife and daughter could hear everything) saying they “found a mass.” I went immediately to my IM doc, who then set an appointment for me with my NeuroSurgeon for Thursday, August 25th.  We waited for 6 hours that day to receive the news that yes, it’s a brain tumor, and we can either biopsy it, or get it out.  We were hoping for a benign meningioma, and scheduled the surgery for the first date available on August 29th, 2016.  The crazy part about all of this is we are living in Seattle at the time, but had come to Texas for a weekend of family visits, because we are from here, and all of this hit at once.  So, moving on. A craniotomy was performed in Lubbock, and the occipital tumor was resected. It was a “clean” resection, however, after having the tumor sent to Johns Hopkins, it was found to be Stage IV Glioblastoma, and “very aggressive.” The prognosis is bleak, but there are many evolving and new treatments coming out for this rare form of brain cancer. Needless to say, our family has been devastated, and we have been “busy” with surgeries, beginning of treatments, etc., but…we have our faith in Christ, and the support of so many loving people that have been doing everything they can to help us in every way possible.  I had to turn my phone off because we were simply overwhelmed and couldn’t keep up with all of the normal messages, work messages, and of course the messages about our new obstacle in life.  So, here we are today! We are creating this site as a platform to help keep everyone informed of the latest.  We will try to post periodically, and we will answer questions, and reply to comments when we can.  We are looking for all of the prayers, love, support and good wishes you guys have to give! I just want this problem in our personal lives to serve a bigger purpose regardless of the outcome.  Also, if ANY of you have similar stories on this particular type of tumor/cancer and you would like to share such as success stories, treatment options, facilities for treatments, please feel free to share.  My company is currently even assisting on this avenue, and we have talked to several people about new cutting edge medicine, but it never hurts to hear from people with first-hand experience.  We have done a tremendous amount of research with the help of my company and others, but again, any of you with direct experience please feel free to shout out.  My family sincerely thanks EVERY SINGLE one of you for your thoughts, prayers, well wishes, cards and flowers.  It DOES make a difference and uplifts us in times where we are feeling a bit beat down.  Trust me when I say we are even praying for those of you that are complete strangers and praying for us.  It makes all the difference in the world.  We will do our best to post when we have the energy to do it.  Otherwise, thank all of you for everything!

 
                                                                                    All our love,

                                                                                    The Tergerson Family