Fight for Pete! Emergency Brain Cancer Surgery Recovery

I’m not sure where to start.

Pete has lived with brain cancer knowingly since 2014. He was diagnosed with a grade 2 astrocytoma 10 years ago. At that time he was admitted for brain surgery at University of Miami with Dr. Richard Komatar. No other surgeon after viewing his tumor would touch it. They were afraid they would paralyze half of his body. When he had the surgery, they were able to get a small sample, but hardly any of the tumor. After that surgery, he had treatment of chemotherapy and radiation for many weeks after surgery.

Over the years, he has had several MRIs to monitor his cancer. It did not change or grow at

all after many years and many scans.

His only symptom, that happened daily, was full body numbness, leaving him unable to speak that lasted for less than a minute every day.

A year ago, Pete had an episode that we thought was sleep apnea, so I took him to the ER. At that time, the doctors did another scan, and they said that his tumor shows mild change.

Over the last month, Pete has seemed to been going downhill. He was getting lost driving, unsure how to unlock doors, and was putting his clothes on inside out and backwards daily. He was having trouble focusing on anything.

I was getting worried so I’m scheduled a neurologist appointment, primary doctor appointment, oncologist appointment, and scheduled an MRI.

On Tuesday, when he went to his primary doctor.

I let them know everything that was happening, and they sent Pete straight to the ER.

When we got there, he had a CT scan. The doctor came in and said, “Its bad” I started crying. I knew something was wrong and I don’t know how I didn’t address it even earlier.

They told me that what he developed in his brain was 15.7mm of right-to-left subfalcine herniation. He showed uncal herniation also. The tumor had spread throughout.

They told us that his brain was no longer in the center of his skull. It was being pushed to the right from cancerous tumor growth, and cysts. He had major swelling in his skull.

None of the doctors at Holy Cross would touch it- They said in order to save his life, he needed to be transferred to University of Miami by ambulance.

They said the only option was to do emergency brain surgery.

He had surgery the night he got here.. 5 hours later the surgeon let me know that they got a good amount of the tumor, but we are still waiting on prognosis and pathology.

Pete wont be able to go back to work for a very long time, if it all. I started this go fund me to help make his life easier through recovery.

Im camping out with him in Neuro ICU, but they like to get you out as soon as they can after surgery, so may be moved to a regular room and then home soon.

He is the kindest man I know, and I love him more than anything. I have cried more then I ever have not knowing if he was going to live. This is the first obstacle. We have a long road to recovery , but we will get there. He is the strongest person know.

Last surgery his first words were,

“Im a fuckin lion, rawr!”

This time he said, ‘’Im hard to kill.’’

Thank you for listening. If anything, please share his story. Thank you for all of the love from everyone. So very thankful for the support no matter what way. ❤️

I will update all of you with his prognosis and next steps when we know more.

❤️ Erika