Hello! My name is Leandra Hurlbert, I am my 46yo mother's only child. Her name is Allyson Hills, and she is the most selfless, hardworking, and independent women I know, almost to a fault. She has been severely struggling physically, mentally, emotional, and financially over the past year and refuses to ask for help. So, I decided that I needed to ask for her! Luckily, she likes to live off the grid and does not have any social media, so she can’t yell at me for doing this for her

 

In February of 2021, a large unremovable cyst was found attached to her cerebellum and she was rushed into emergency brain surgery at MUSC here in Charleston, SC, so quickly I barely had a chance to say goodbye. Luckily, she did come out of that alive, we were told the doctors had drained the cyst to alleviate the pressure on her brain and she began what we thought was her recovery.

 

Following this, she moved into my townhouse with my boyfriend and I while she was in and out of follow up appointments: physical therapy, speech therapy, cognitive therapy etc., but she continued to experience worsening symptoms. She first went on short term leave from her job as she was unable to drive or even walk without an assistance. As time went on she switched over to long term leave until she ultimately lost her job, all her benefits, and her insurance. In order to continue her treatment, she had to start paying insurance out of pocket at $900 a month that doesn't seem to be covering much of anything.

 

Seven months after the first surgery, we were told that the doctors missed the cyst during the first surgery and instead drained cerebral fluid rather than the cyst itself. This meaning, they never fixed anything, and she continued to get worse for 7 months experiencing a significant amount of pain the entire time. We scheduled a second surgery as soon as they could in November 2021. This time they did successfully drain the cyst and my mom begin, again what we thought was recovery. She was in the hospital for about two weeks recovering, this time including Thanksgiving Day which was rough on all of us. Still today, she has to walk with a walker or sometimes a cane to get around herself.

 

In January 2022, the doctors told us that the even though they drained the cyst, cerebral fluid has begun leaking directly into her brain. She had another surgery on January 24th, 2022, to add a stent that would help fix the leak. This ended up being a very painful surgery for my mom as they had to drill into her brain and cut into her stomach. It has not even been a month since then and we have just been told that the severe pain my mom has had since Jan 24th is because the stent is not place correctly and is tangled in her stomach!! We are currently waiting to schedule another surgery to address this.

 

Besides all of the obvious terrible parts to this experience. The worst part is the doctors believe what started the growth of the cyst and leak in her brain in the first place was an almost deadly car accident my mom was in back in 1995. She was pregnant with me when she was hit head on by a DRUNK driver in a truck. She broke her back, I almost died, and she was in the hospital for weeks. ALL of this could have been prevented.

 

My mom is an AMAZING person and if you know her than you know she deserves so much better than this. My mom is on a payment plan to help pay MUSC tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills. If you are able to donate, ALL of the money will go toward her current and upcoming medical expenses in the hopes that it will be one less thing she has to worry about. All donations or sharing of her story will be so much appreciated. Thank you all!!