Our Warrior Fighting Brain Cancer

I'll warn you all now this has been a long few months so this is a LONG story. As some of you may know for the last 2years we've had a perfectly healthy baby boy, up until about 5months ago and our world got turned upside down. We were living in Pittsburgh for about 3months when Cj's health started to decline. He started to randomly get sick, he would sleep all night and wake up in the morning and want to immediately go back to sleep, he had no energy, he wasn't himself, never wanted to play and if anyone knows our Cj that isn't him. He was still eating and drinking so we weren't too concerned. After about a week he stopped getting sick but was still fully not himself, then his right eye started to turn in. Then he began to get sick all over again. I went with my mommy instincts we took him to the ER. They did a CT scan, the nurse came back to tell us something was abnormal with his brain and we were getting admitted, like any normal parents reaction we started freaking out asking what does that mean, how does something like this happen, better yet what does abnormal mean?! Nothing was answered other than he needs an MRI and further testing. Cj got an MRI, it came back with he had fluid and pressure on his brain they did a spinal tap and found out that the pressure was at a 50% level when at his age it should've been between 17%-20%. We had no idea how this happened or what would randomly cause something like this to happen to him. All blood work came back negative for every virus, sickness, bacteria out there. He got put on a medicine called Diamox, after a week of being in the hospital, the medicine was working, his eye went back to normal, & he was his active, happy self. We got discharged with the medicine and thought everything was all said and done. A week later everything started happening again. Just to find out that everything was worse. The next day we were surrounded by doctors telling us Cj had to go into surgery that day to get a shunt, which would attach to his brain, travel down his neck and abdomen area so the fluid could drain and relieve the pressure. After surgery he was diagnosed with Hydrocephalus with no cause or reason. From May up until about a few weeks ago Cj has been doing great for the most part. A few weeks ago he was extremely off balance. We brought him to Hershey to get him checked out. They said the shunt was working fine and nothing seemed to be wrong he was probably just sick and told us to come back if anything got worse. Well guess what? Things got worse. Went for a second opinion, at this point no one could tell us much other than they thought he was having seizures. 2 weeks ago he threw up again. He dropped to his knees, got extremely pale, started to drool all over, and stopped responding to his name. We got transported by ambulance to the ER and they told us he was having a seizure. We went through more imaging and testing to find out his shunt needed replaced which was at this time the answer as to why he was having seizures. He went in for a revision all went well and we got discharged. 2 days later he threw up again, he went unconscious and wasn't responding. Rushed him to the ER, he got sent to the trauma bay right away. He was turning extremely pale, slightly blue and our happy, baby just wasn't there. He got resesitated, his oxygen levels were extremely low and he was in and out of this seizure for about 2hrs. We got admitted into intensive care. Next day he went down for more MRIs, CT scans, EEG, blood work, etc. The doctors didn't quite understand how Pittsburgh ruled Cj out with Hydrocephalus with no cause or reason. After everything was done we later got informed information NO parent wants to hear especially about their 2year old. "Your son has a decent size tumor in the middle of his brain" not sure if it is cancerous or not but it was there and they were going to do all that they could to get us the answers we've needed for months now. As you all know we are still here in Hershey Medical with no discharged date. Cj goes in for yet another surgery but this time an invasive brain surgery Wednesday morning. It'll take between 5-8hrs. The surgeon is going to remove the entire tumor unless he runs into any complications at that point he will stop the surgery and we will go an alternative route. It will then be sent off for further testing to see what we're dealing with. Either way our little one will be going through chemo treatment. Right now we are stuck in a tight situation with everything. One of us are currently not working due to constantly having to call off for emergency doctors appointments and work not understanding and the other has been needing to call off and forseeing it continuing to happen in the near future due to this invasive surgery, recovery, and chemo treatment. Between traveling from Hershey to Dillsburg for work when I can, traveling back and forth from home to here for things we need, buying odds and ends like toiletries and so forth, and paying to have to eat and drink every day is cutting money extremely tight on everything and bills coming up. None of us expect the money goal we have set I just picked an amount so it doesn't need to keep being adjusted, but any little bit helps. We hate even resorting to something like this but family and health comes first and our baby is coming first and doing what we need to do to get him better and back to his healthy self as much as we can. As you can see from the outside Cj does not look like there is anything wrong but on the inside I wish I could say it was the same. He's an amazing, strong little boy and we feel absolutely helpless there is nothing we can do to fix this. No hugs, kisses, snuggles, or love will eliminate his health issues. We are just doing the best we can to hold it together and be here for him as much as we can. We finally have answers now we need to focus on getting him better and the help he needs. Cj is our warrior and we are putting our faith and trust in Gods hands at this point. Thanks in advance for anyone that can help and took time to read this mess of a story, you all have no idea how much it will be appreciated!!

Sincerely with grateful hearts,
Craig Himmel II & Brittany Sultzaberger