December 13, 2022, Ryan had an ocular migraine. He went to see the optometrist, and they told him it was rare and may only occur once in a lifetime. They said if he had trouble after this, he would need to see a neurologist.
4 days later when Connie came back from town, Ryan was on the iPad and had an episode that was alarming. He said he felt like he couldn’t find any of the keys on the keyboard and couldn’t really figure out how to spell words.
He contacted his general practitioner. Ryan met his GP who gave him medication for seizures. The general practitioner said he would give Ryan a referral to a neurologist. He never got a call from a neurologist and didn’t hear back from the GP.
On January 26 Ryan had his annual cardiologist appointment, that was as soon as they could see him. He shared with him about the ocular migraine and was beginning to have trouble with letters, and shared that he was noticing he was “messing up” his words at times.
That doctor ordered carotid artery to be checked and wanted a CT scan of the brain.
January 30th: There were no blockages in the arteries. They had to wait for the brain scan report. There were markers that indicated he had a mini stroke. Afib could have caused the mini stroke. Doctors had to check out all possible things that could have caused the stroke. The ocular migraine could have also been the culprit. (Fast forward and we now know the culprit.)
Those results the cardiologist received made him want to contact a neurosurgeon immediately.
The soonest he could be worked in for the official MRI brain scan would he February 14 which was 2 months after the onset of the first symptoms.
February 14th. Scan done - now they waited.
February 16th they went to the neurologist’s office… the first words from the neurologist were, “it’s all bad news y’all.” The doctor told Connie and Ryan the news that he has a glioblastoma brain cancer tumor on the left side of his brain. There was a 6cm tumor as well as two smaller ones.
The doctor recommends a brain surgery to removes as much of the the tumor as possible, but the side effects are pretty serious. The most concerning part of that surgery is 80% of people could lose the ability to speak and could loose the ability to understand spoken words. The other surgery option is to biopsy the tumor and know what kind of radiation and chemotherapy to start to shrink the tumor.
February 17, 2023 was his full body scan to check for cancer anywhere else in the body. Those results aren’t in yet.
He meets with his radiologist this Wednesday. Once the body scan results are in, the oncologist will call with the results and the radiation treatment plan will be based on those results.
As of now surgery is scheduled for March 3, 2023.
Normally, if there was more time, if this were a less aggressive tumor, or if the size or even location were different, they would consider alternative medicine options. Unfortunately it seems times is not on their side. The doctor asked Connie & Ryan to decide: •do nothing •tumor removal surgery •biopsy only to determine chemo and radiation plan
He has to make his decision this week. We’re asking for overwhelming peace that passes all understanding.
Ryan is a very resilient, compassionate, friendly, positive, encouraging, “happiest human on the planet” kind of man. He loves life, loves people, and he really loves projects. Ryan is adventurous and had a lot of life left to live. Thanks for following his journey. We know God is a miracle worker and we ask for your prayers for complete healing and restoration. We pray for Connie as his caregiver for strength, courage, discernment, and peace as they walk this road together.
Ryan’s Celebration of Life will be held Wednesday, December 13th. The family will receive friends at 2:00pm at Davenport Funeral Home in Walhalla, SC. The funeral will be held at 3:00pm, and the graveside will be at Heritage Memorial Gardens on Highway 11 following the service.
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