The Baker's Medical Fight

 Dave has had one hiding for many years and it was just discovered by an amazing ED doctor at AGH . She made the smart decision to do a cat scan at his emergency room visit  for an abnormal  reaction to prednisone .

A Pheochromocytoma is a rare tumor of the adrenaline gland. It occurs in about 2 in a million people worldwide.   Most of these are discovered too late because of the amount of damage they do to kidneys,  heart and blood vessels.    He was fortunate this was found .  Dave has a large,  10cm "Pheo" on his left adrenaline gland,  directly over his kidney. (Grapefruit sized) . It has caused years of uncontrolled high blood  pressure,  irregular heart rate,  tremors, unstable bp, blood sugar spikes  , sweating and an aneurysm in his aorta.  It has also pushed his kidney down.  

They are not able to do the surgery right away because of the uncontrolled blood pressure,  heart rate and sugar this thing is causing. .   They have to have him on medicine for 2 weeks before surgery to keep the blood pressure under control during surgery.  These tumors cause spikes and falls in blood pressure, especially a much higher risk when removing it.  His aortic aneurysm puts him at risk during surgery.  His doctors assured us the entire team will have him in good hands. 
He's having an open surgery because of the size,  so his recovery will take longer. 


Our little town of Berlin doesn't have specialist here to handle this delicate surgery.  He is having all  medical care at Johns Hopkins  in  Baltimore.  
   When he asked what caused it, his doctor said "bad luck. 

If you know Dave,  he's always been active.  Either volunteering,  Working full time and also working a second job at the Rec. Dept. , which he is unable to do either now.   It's been very difficult for him, especially because someone has to keep an eye on him now with him being unsteady.  


Friends and family can follow his progress on here or his caring bridge site.    Surgery will be March 5th at John's Hopkins in Baltimore.   Thank you for all the continued prayers for his recovery, and all the kind words.  

A percentage of donations will go to the PheoPara alliance which helps patients and educators with this rare disease.  

Rare Disease Day is Feb 28th. 

Thank you !