Christina Stomps on Brain Cancer
Growing up, Christina didn't have the normal, happy childhood. She watched drugs consume her mother's life. When she was nine, her parents got a divorce and she lived with her father and brother. In 2012, everything turned for the worst for her. Her father passed away suddenly from a heart attack. She was 17 years old and a senior in high school. She moved in with a friend's family and struggled with depression. Christina started pursuing her college education until September of 2014. Her mother passed away and she could not focus on her studies.
Christina was working at Olympia Sporting goods store. She started to have severe headaches, loss of coordination, and slurring of speech. It got to the point that she did not want to get out of bed because her head hurt so bad. September 2, 2016, we called her doctor and they told her to come in. After seeing her doctor, they sent her for a CT scan and then an MRI. They found a mass on the MRI scan and immediately sent her to the emergency room.
After being at the emergency room for several hours, they transported her to Georgetown Hospital. I rode in the ambulance with Christina and she was very scared. When we got to Georgetown, she was put in ICU. The surgeon came in the next day to talk to her about removing the tumor. September 4, 2016 the tumor was removed from her Cerebellum. Her recovery from the surgery was very long and painful. She was unable to move her head from side to side and the incision was about four inches up the back of her head.
We went back to see the surgeon a week later to find out the results. The diagnosis of the tumor was Medulloblastoma. This is a Pediatric type of brain cancer that can occur in children and young adults.
The doctors told us that radiation and chemotherapy treatment was needed to treat the cancer. While going through her treatments, she lived at the Hope Lodge in Baltimore, Maryland. In Baltimore, she had six weeks of radiation, five days a week, and chemotherapy once a week. These treatments have left her with memory loss and other cognitive difficulties.
Currently she is living her 80 year old Grandmother and disabled aunt. On December 22, 2016, she started her next form of treatment which is four different types of chemotherapy. She will have to have these four different types of chemo every month for a year.
She is currently unable to work and has no income coming in. Money has been a constant stress factor for her. Every day she gets bills from the medical facilities, but has no way of paying them. I couldn't believe she was diagnosis with such a horrible disease when she had already been through hell all her life. We are trying to make this as stress free as we can for her financially, so any little bit would be a great help.
