In March of 2024 as Andy was finishing his doctorate degree he started having these strange neurological “episodes.” He would feel the blood rush to his head, sudden panic, strange Deja vu sensation, and occasionally have a metal taste in his mouth. At the time they were infrequent and seemed stress related. After a couple weeks they went away. A few months later, they returned. This time a little stronger. Andy decided to schedule an appointment with his primary care physician who seemed to also think it was panic/stress related. The episodes went away again for a few months. Then returned, then went away. This summer they returned and did not go away. In fact, they got stronger and more frequent. We did have a very stressful year, so it was still very easy to write them off as panic attacks. We visited family in Arizona in June, and my cousin (a medical scientist) had the insight to suggest Andy see a neurologist. The neurologist couldn’t get him in until December 1st. September rolled around and Andy was having 30-40 of these episodes daily. He called and said they needed to get him in sooner. Thankfully, they got him in September 23rd. The neurologist ordered an EEG, and it came back normal. Then he ordered an MRI. There was a lesion. He ordered a high contrast MRI. Andy got this MRI November 12th. (Baby Benny was due the 15th.) This MRI came back highly suggesting a high grade neoplasm (cancer.) in a tricky to reach spot behind his right temporal lobe and sitting on the pituitary and the optic nerve. This now defined Andy‘s “episodes” as focal aware seizures. We got in to Mayfield Clinic to meet with a neurosurgeon on November 14th and his surgery was scheduled for December 2nd. Benny was born the 17th.

Surgery went extremely well, and he is healing nicely. The surgeon was able to achieve full resection (removal) of all visible tumor tissue. (Brilliant surgeon. If you need a brain surgery referral, I know who to send you to.) He has not had a single seizure since the surgery. Pathology reports, however, have been not such great news. The original report suggested that Andy likely had glioblastoma. This is a very deadly, hardly treatable, incurable brain cancer. Even with full resection, it always comes back and rapidly. There was enough confusing features of his tumor, however, that they sent it off for something called “NGS” testing to further investigate and define the cancer’s molecular structure. We got these results back on Saturday, and thankfully he has a very confusing, rare cancer — not always something to be thankful about, but in this case it‘s a very good thing. — that they are not able to quite define as glioblastoma. It looks more like an astrocytoma with piloid features, which is still a grade 4, extremely aggressive glioma, but it tends to respond more favorably to treatment. There are several other pieces to the puzzle of his particular tumor’s make up that will hopefully help it to be more treatable. It is still considered an incurable brain cancer, but the prognosis tends to be slightly better for longer treat-ability. (Andy is very in tune to all of the details and official science behind it all. If you want more details about the scientific specifics feel free to reach out to him.) Andy’s local neuro oncologist has only seen his specific cancer in one other patient in the last ten years. His tumor also at the moment is showing that it contains both high grade (rapidly growing) and low grade (slow growing) features which is very unique. Because of the rare combination of features, they have sent the tissue off for even more testing to be more sure of the results.

On December 30th and 31st Andy has appointments set up with MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to further investigate and get treatment consultations from some of the top brain cancer doctors in the world. We appreciate our local team so much, but we’re very thankful to have the opportunity to consult with MD Anderson especially since Andy’s cancer structure is so rare.

Right now we are full of hope, joy, and peace. Please pray for us as we continue to navigate this scary, daunting journey.

I hope to keep updates coming on Caring Bridge that way I don’t have to keep leaving anyone out of the loop when there are updates.