Kristy's Story...Traveling to Duke Hospital

Hi,

My name is Pam and I am Kristy's mom. Kristy and Michael, along with Michaels' parents, are now at the St. Louis airport. Their flight to Raleigh/Durham departs at 6:30 and arrives in North Carolina around 9:30 Eastern time, 8:30 p.m. Central time. They dropped their boys off here at 4:00 before leaving. I spoil them a little while mom and dad are gone, no I try to spoil them all the time. The past two years has been especially hard on the twelve year old. He is old enough to understand what is going on while the 5 year old just knows dad has to see the doctor again. Right now they are playing Play Station and looking forward to ice cream soon. They really miss mom and dad and worry about their dad.


Tomorrow Michael will check in at Duke Hospital for pre-op tests. Kristy won't leave him the whole time he is in the hospital. He just scoots over in the bed and she stays right next to him. Kristy's sister Stacey will join them tomorrow night. She wants to be there for Kristy during Michaels' surgery Wednesday.

Micheal has been very sick the past couple days. His dizziness has been worse and he has been stumbling a lot. His coordination has been really bad. Last night he was up most of the night sick to his stomach. Once his tumor starts to grow his symptoms rapidly increase. We all hope the symptoms will disappear after the surgery.


If there is anything Kristy wants me to say tomorrow I will post it for her.

Kristy's Story...Thank You

To everyone who has donated and left comments I thank you. I do plan on contacting the people who have left comments that have a similar problem as we are facing. But we need to get through the surgery Wednesday first. And come back home to our boys.

While we are gone next week I may have my mom post some updates on how the surgery went. After we are back and settled back in I will give more details on how things went. Thanks again for all the support and I will be contacting some of you in the near future.

Kristy’s Story…Living a Nightmare

Our 12 year old rides four wheelers and dirt bikes. Last weekend we were watching our son ride his dirt bike out our window. The bike died on him and we watched as he tried to kick start it himself. My husband looked at me and said “If I die then how would you be able to start it back up for him.” I just said “Honey everything is going to be ok.”  That broke my heart so much. I just love and need him so much. He doesn’t say things like that often but the worry about another surgery is getting to him. He is afraid of not knowing his family when he wakes up.

It is like we have been living a horrible nightmare for the past two years. There has not been a day I don’t worry about Michael. I am a mail carrier and while delivering the mail I think about him and cry. The surgery at Duke next week has to help…we need to wake up from this nightmare.

Kristy’s Story…Most Wonderful Man

My husband is the most caring, funny, smart, sweet, brave, and easy to get along with man in the world.  He has also been the greatest husband and father in the world. If you were broke down on the side of the road he would be the first to stop and help. He holds the door open for everyone and always says yes mam or sir. He volunteers to help others no matter his own pain and worries. He is just wonderful. When he did have his job before the brain tumor the guys would always want Michael to go out after work and have a beer. But he never did, he wanted to come straight home to his family. He gets our kids to their activities, always early never late, and teaches our boys great lessons in life on how to grow up to be good men. I could write a book on how wonderful he is. I think he is the perfect man.

Kristy's Story...Physical Problems from Brain Tumors

One of Michael's biggest worries is not being able to play with and teach his boys. He worries he won't be able to do the things his boys love to do. They love to ride four-wheelers, dirt bikes, play baseball, football, and anything that keeps them active.  He was lucky after the first surgery to not have any side effects from the surgery. As I stated before the second surgery left him with a shaky left hand. He can't grasp anything with his left hand now. But that he considers minor compared to what could have been affected. 


Since the tumor has recently started to grow again he is having coordination problems. He gets dizzy and can't make his motions do as his brain wants them to do. Here is an example: Michael is one of the coaches for our 12 year olds baseball team. At our sons last ball game he was throwing the ball up in the air and hitting it to the kids. But he was having trouble coordinating the ball to the bat, this had not happened before. Another coach noticed and helped him out by taking over for him. He is hoping that his next surgery will correct this and not make it worse.


One week from today is his surgery date...I will keep everyone updated.

Kristy’s Story…Living with Headaches

Michael has lived with terrible headaches for over two years now, but you never hear him complain. He just sucks it up and goes on. He has been on 750 mg of Vicodin for a long time but that didn’t help much. So he had been taking 2 at a time just to help his headache for about an hour or two. Now his doctor at Duke put Michael on Oxycodone and a steroid to reduce swelling. But even with this stronger medicine he is still having headaches only now he is not getting all the Tylenol.  Apparently Vicodin has Tylenol and too much Tylenol can cause headaches. Michael has always been fine except for the bad headaches and the shaky left hand but lately he is experiencing coordination problems and dizziness.

I will tell you more about this tomorrow.

Kristy's Story...A Great Friend

I was home Saturday and Michael was out helping a friend, like he always does, when another friend came by. He left a box and told me to have Michael open it when he came home. When Michael came home and opened it there was an old bible inside. The bible had been passed down in the friends family for over 150 years. In it the friend had wrote “Thank you Lord for such a great person and great friend, give this courageous man the strength he needs.”  Makes me cry just writing this. We are so lucky to have friends and family that also love Michael.

 

I will continue to share other information and our trip to Duke Hospital for Michael’s next surgery.