Tori's Support Fund

On 04/04/23 my sister was involved in a car accident where someone hit her on the passenger side of her vehicle. The impact on the car wasn’t huge but the prognosis that came weeks after will forever change our family's lives. Initially, right after the accident, she felt fine. But the next day 04/05/23 is when some of the symptoms began. She started to feel really bad neck pain, especially with movement so she was able to get a last-minute appointment with a chiropractor for an adjustment accompanied with electrical stimulation in hopes of relief. Unfortunately, the pain worsened so she decided on 04/06/23 to go to Patient First to be further evaluated. There she was diagnosed with sprained spine and was given a neck brace along with pain meds for relief and was told to take it easy for a few days. She followed doctors' orders but days later things still weren’t getting better. She began to notice tingling in her head and stronger headaches. She made an orthopedic appointment in hopes of addressing the neck pain accompanied by headaches. She didn’t put much thought into the tingling at that time as that was something unfamiliar to her. On 04/13/23 she went to the orthopedic doctor where he prescribed her physical therapy and told her to follow up with a neurologist as soon as possible. When she left the orthopedic doctor she called several neurology offices for an appointment but all of them were months booked out. When she began to feel tingling and numbness on the left side of her body that’s when she became really worried and drove herself to a local emergency room that same afternoon.

At that emergency room, there was only one doctor working that evening. Tori felt she was misdiagnosed because the doctor told her she felt it was a concussion and Tori made it clear she did not hit her head during the accident. The tingling and numbness were also mentioned to that doctor but she believes that due to there only being one doctor and an overwhelming amount of patients waiting the doctor prescribed her meds and told her to just come back if symptoms got worse. She went home because she had to pick up her daughters and decided to give the meds a chance. That same night she took the meds that the ER doctor prescribed but couldn’t sleep, tossed and turned all night as the tingling with headache was so intense she had a gut feeling something wasn’t right. For that reason on 04/14/23, she got her daughters to school and then went to another ER (Inova Fairfax) where she felt she would get proper treatment. Well, good thing she did because they decided to do a CT scan based on the same symptoms she told the ER the day before. The results came back with an abnormality so an MRI was ordered to further assess the mass that showed on the CT scan.

A neuro doctor came to see Tori to explain to her that what showed up on the CT scan and MRI was a tumor and that they believed she had also been experiencing seizures. They immediately gave her seizure medication and admitted her to the hospital. Several hours later a neurosurgeon came to discuss her results further letting her know that he was not sure what type of tumor she had and could not tell how long it had been there. That is when the decision was made to do brain surgery the following day to take a biopsy of the tumor and remove it if possible in hopes of only doing one surgery and preventing another. On 04/15/23 the removal of the tumor was successful and the biopsy was performed. However, the news following was heart-wrenching. The biopsy results reported that Tori had a Grade 2 Astrocytoma giving her a life expectancy of 10-12 years. Tori’s pain took a toll on her following surgery which kept her there for 12 days. She was released on 04/23/23 when she was able to go home in hopes to recover agreeing that she would follow up with an oncologist, neurosurgeon and neurologist outpatient so that way she could be in a more comfortable environment surrounded by family most importantly her two daughters ages 9 and 12 that kept asking when she was coming home. Although the surgeon was confident that the tumor was fully removed along with scans performed that confirmed so, the oncologist stated that these types of tumors stem from cells of the brain itself and that there is no guarantee to know that another tumor will not reform and that the cancer is gone. Due to the prognosis and seizures, Tori has been given doctors' orders to be out of work for 3 months to fully recover and her driving privileges suspended for 6 months due to the seizures.

A lot of friends and family have already been supportive but she needs more help although we know times are tough for everyone right now. So any donation helps her recover without having to worry about bills as we know regardless of any situation they do not stop. Since she hasn’t been at her most recent full-time job for 12 months yet, she, unfortunately, doesn’t qualify for additional assistance through her employer. Prayers are highly encouraged as we know God has the final say. If you know my sister you know she is so thankful and appreciative for any assistance as it’s hard for her to even ask for help. She does ask for continued prayers as she fights to be there for her two daughters that mean so much to her. I hope we can come together and be a blessing to my sister as she pulls through this tough chapter of her life.

We thank you for your kindness, generosity and love ❤️.