Daniel Carlin's Brain Surgery

My boyfriend Dan has had a very eventful past 2 years. In September 2014 him and I moved from our home town in Pennsylvania when he was accepted into the Los Angeles Police Academy. Even though it was a big life change it had been a life long dream of Dan's to be a police officer. The transition from college life in Pennsylvania to real life so far away from family was difficult but Dan maintained his constant motivation and hard work leading to be nominated as class leader and graduating as top of the class. During the academy, in Christmas season, there was a sudden death in the family that almost pulled him out of the training. After graduating from the LAPD academy he started working patrol in a dangerous south central division. On top of working 12 hour shifts everyday he was also drilling with the Marine Corps making up for lost time while in the academy. A few months into working for LAPD I was is a major car accident that put me in the hospital for over a week leaving me out of work. I don't know where I would be if I didn't have him there to take such amazing care of me on top of working two exhausting jobs. Since I was out of work for so long due to my injuries it made us take a deeper look into getting financially stable. This leads me to how we found out about this diagnosis.

We began looking into buying a home as renting in California is basically a rip off. In order to save the money we would need for a down payment our wonderful friends offered for us to move in with them. In all the years I've been with Dan he mentioned often in passing he was always having headaches, it seemed so trivial and normal for him that we never took notice of it. While living with our friends, one of which just happened to work for a very specialized brain surgeon, took notice of the symptoms he kept mentioning. For years he had just assumed that daily headaches that made his head feel like a balloon expanding, sudden blurry and double vision, leg and arm numbness, ear ringing and insomnia was just a normal part of life. Our friend recognized these symptoms as something her doctor specializes in treating and ordered Dan an MRI. Lo and behold the MRI showed a rather large pineal cyst with a partial tumor. When we spoke with Dr. Shahinian we were told that as this tumor grows it can lead to sudden loss of consciousness, potential seizures, debilitating migraines, and decreased vision. Being that Dan is only 23 and with such a high risk job leaving this tumor in will ruin everything that he worked so hard to achieve.

Obviously this was a big realization that took us for quite the spin as we had just closed on our first house. Luckily we knew right away that the doctor our friend works for was the doctor we needed to talk to, this doctor specializes in the safe removal of pineal tumors endoscopically that can cut down on recovery time from over a year to just a few weeks. Being that Dan's job requires him to be alert for very long periods of time, needing split second decision making, keeping the community safe and basically keeping his partner and himself alive having this tumor puts him in more danger every day.

We know that this needs to come out as soon as possible so he can get back to normal life and kicking butt! As you might imagine, getting brain surgery from one of the most experienced doctors doesn't come cheap. Being that I am still in college and working a part time job I can't get us afloat until he recovers. Our insurance will cover about 75% of the medical bills but we have to come up with the rest on top of making sure our bills are covered for the time he is out of work. The doctor recommended that he take a longer time away from work (about 3 months) because of the risk of his job. We are currently working with the insurance to get more covered but they are fighting us every step of the way. 

The breakdown for surgery on August 10th
Surgical costs: $31,000.00
Mortage: $2,400.00x3
Utilities and other monthly payments: $1,000.00x3
Compensating for gofundme fees: $1,800.00
TOTAL: $43,000.00

We know that this is such a daunting amount to try to fundraise, but we can't let Dan go much longer with out this surgery. Everyday he gets higher and higher risk for worse symptoms that could lead to him getting hurt or worse on duty. He has such a passion for helping others that led him into the military and policing we just ask that our friends and family help us get through this difficult time in our lives!

We are so thankful for all of the help and support from our loved ones!

You can see more information about the doctor, Dr. Shahinian, who would be doing the surgery at www.skullbaseinstitute.com