Early on in the year, my mother, Pamela, started having difficulties with her left leg. She went to many types of doctors over the coming months that continued to her tell that she was just experiencing weakness and needed to do strengthening exercises. Nothing seemed to help and her left leg steadily got worse, till one morning she tried to get out of bed and her leg didn’t work at all. She fell straight to the floor, hit her head, and wasn’t able to get herself up. An ambulance quickly took to her to the hospital where a CT and MRI showed more than 20+ tumors to the brain. None of us had ever considered the problems with her leg to be neurological, much less cancerous but it was.

Following her diagnosis in July 2021, she had brain surgery to remove and biopsy one of the tumors, as well as, three weeks of intensive radiation. She has been so incredibly positive and she worked everyday to try to get stronger to simply walk again.

Last week, right before Thanksgiving, my father, Slim, called to tell me that Pam had been sitting on the edge of the bed, lost consciousness, and fell to the floor. He called an ambulance and when she woke, she couldn’t speak. The local hospital would only do a CT scan and was ready to discharge her home. After speaking with the ER doctor, I insisted that she also needed a new MRI and was in no state to be sent home. He simply refused, and sent her home.

I drove through the night to arrive at 1:00 am to find her in even worse of a state than expected. She wasn’t able to speak, had left sided facial droop, could no longer move her left arm, and was having increased weakness in that left leg. I quickly got her to Vanderbilt. There they quickly admitted her with new scans. It was then that we found out that she was having a lot of swelling, as well as, some bleeding in the brain. With the help of steroids, she has improved way more than what was expected.

After a week in the hospital in Nashville, we got less than desirable news. The tumors are growing, swelling, and bleeding at a high rate, and the steroids can only hold it off from so long. Doctors have suggested that she could only have 2-4 weeks left with a max of 2 months. We are still working on some genetic sequencing that can target mutations with special medications. These medications could prolong or even save her life if they find certain mutations.

After this recent episode, her weakness is a lot worse and it wasn’t safe for her to return home with just my help. She is currently in a facility doing rehab in the hopes to get stronger. Even with this recent news, it has not slowed her down on working on her goal to walk again.

I am faced with some tough decisions on how to best care for her and for her needs. All the options that I have considered will carry a high financial burden. Her current stay in the facility is being covered by her insurance but if she was to no longer meet rehab goals or to go on hospice, the self-pay amount would be $250 dollars a day. If she was to go home, I could not care for her by myself, in which I would have to hire part time help that could assist me since we do not have any family within the state or near by that could help. It would mean a lot to my family and myself if you donated to help off put some of the foreseeable costs. It would mean the world to us if we did not have to worry about how we will have the means to provide the best care for my mother in her final days. Thank you all for your love and support.