Brian McEwan & Family

On April 30 2018, on my brother-in-law Brian's birthday, he came down with what he thought was the flu. After the flu seemed to pass, he noticed significant problems with his vision, which included extreme headaches that never would go away and would cause inner ear pain. Everything was blurry, he had dark spots in his vision and extreme light sensitivity that progressively got worse. So bad that sunglasses even had to be worn inside at times and it started making it difficult with his work as an electrician working outside.

After weeks of this, Brian realized that it was something that wasn't going away on its own and scheduled an appointment with an ophthalmologist. The opthalmologist discovered in addition to Brian's vision loss he had several large legions on both of his retinas. He wasn't a retina specialist so he referred him to another eye Doctor.  While waiting for his appointment Brian's vision continued to deteriorate and the headaches became more and more debilitating to the point where he would come home from work and couldn't do anything but lay on the couch with an ice bag on his eyes and head.  When the day finally arrived for his retina specialist appointment the Dr diagnosed Brian with a rare eye disease called Surreptitious Acute Posterior Multifocal Placoid Epitheliopathy (APMPPE) with possible Vasculitis "inflammation of the brain". The Dr knew enough to order an MRI of the brain and rushed it for the next day. 

The next day Friday June 1st, Brian suffered a stroke. He was hospitalized and doctors scrambled to figure out why a healthy 32 year old with no risk factors would have a stroke. As a team of doctors worked together to figure it out, they discovered that in addition to the APMPPE, and Stroke, Brian also has Aseptic Meningitis. He was hospitalized for 5 days, and will be out of work while he recovers. Brian still suffers with debilitating headaches but miraculously only has mild speech and memory problems resulting from his stroke. Unfortunately the doctors are unsure how much his vision will improve, or how long that will take.

This will be a long road for Brian. With all the medical expenses, costly tests that were ran, Brian having to take off of work,  and unplanned expenses that come with these types of emergencies we all have an opportunity to help this sweet family out.  By helping offset some of these costs, we are giving the family time to focus on what's really important and not let finances be the source of any more unneeded stress. Please consider donating to help Brian and his young family out!