Help Josh fight against Leo(colloid brain cyst)

Hello, my name is Julie Nester; I am so very blessed to call Josh Nester my husband and father to our 4 children. Josh is currently facing the greatest challenge of his life and we are in need of some support! My husband gives of himself entirely to his family, friends, athletes and everyone he meets but now HE is the one who needs help!  Josh has been very sick the past 9 months with debilitating vertigo, headaches, memory issues and exhaustion.  On 11/4/2021 Josh was told that he had a grape sized brain mass on his brain stem that was causing all the symptoms and was life threatening. After meeting with a neurologist in Roanoke, we found out that the mass in his brain was a colloid cyst that was a little smaller than they originally thought.  Colloid brain cysts are very rare so there is no practice within 2 hours that specializes in treating them so we are hoping to get to UVA or John's Hopkins for a second opinion from a specialist.   Its very important that Josh aggressively addresses this cyst because it is a VERY serious health issue and could be life threatening.  Because Josh is so selfless he has been minimizing and masking his symptoms for over 6 months so that he could force himself to coach and help with the family whenever he felt up to it. We need to take care of Josh now so that he keeps his blood pressure down, gets plenty of rest for his headaches and keeps his stress levels low.  Sadly life has not been kind to our family the passed few months and it is making it so hard to take care of this man who is so important to so many! It would mean the world to us if you would take the time to read our story and share this fund!  Every donation touches our heart deeply and we will never be able to fully express our gratitude but will try our best!

Here is our story:

 

Almost 10 years ago we met and instantly fell in love! I was a single mother of 4 and he had never been married. It filled my heart with joy to see how he jumped right into his new roles as father and husband. Josh was a coach for our son's travel baseball team (Radford Rattlers) for 5 years and coach of Auburn High School Track & Field. He is passionate about coaching and developing students to reach their fullest potential. I have watched him pour his entire soul and all of his time into coaching; its his calling.

 

Our family has had a recent run of very bad luck that started with COVID-19 and ended with scary news. Last year in December 2020 my husband Josh came down with COVID-19, it was right around Christmas and caused us to have to celebrate a small, quiet Christmas . He handled the COVID-19 symptoms well and was back to coaching in January. Since he was a high school coach he was able to get the vaccination in the first round in January 2021 but no one asked him if he had recently had COVID-19. He got the Moderna vaccine and had worse side effects from the vaccine than he did when he actually had COVID-19. The worst side effect from the vaccine were the headaches, dizziness/vertigo and brain fog. He toughed through the symptoms for both shots, one in January 2021 and the other February 2021.

 

Sadly his symptoms got worse and were really starting to impact his life as well as out family. His symptoms were still so bad that he had horrible exhaustion, headaches and dizziness that interfered with him being able to work as a contractor. His quality of life was horrible but as a family we were going through a lot. We had just sold our home of 9 years and were moving into a townhome(MUCH SMALLER). All three of our daughters are in college, 2 at Radford and 1 at Virginia Tech so we had to get them moved into their housing. At the same time our son was starting as a Freshman at Auburn High School and was only able to go to 2 days of school before he had to quarantine. I tested positive for COVID-19 the end of August so our son and I had to quarantine into September. Our son did not test positive for COVID-19 in September but in October 2021 he tested positive for COVID-19 and I did as well. We both had really rough COVID-19 symptoms and my symptoms are still present to this day. In October I started struggling with work and my performance was not where they wanted it to be but my health was impacting my ability to be on top of my game. I had been the sole income for our family for the past year because of Josh's health and our family's insurance was from my employer.

 

My husband Josh had been feeling so very sick from September-October 2021 that he thought he had COVID-19 again but never tested positive. His headaches, exhaustion and dizziness were interfering with his everyday life so much that he really only had 4-6 hours a day that he was able to be productive. He had been making a lot of very positive lifestyle changes from July-October 2021 but nothing was helping and his symptoms seemed to be getting worse. So on 11/1/2021 Josh had an MRI and was told on Thursday, 11/4/2021 that he had a grape sized mass on his brain stem. They didn't have much more information to give but said that they wanted him to get more bloodwork done and would be working to help get him into a neurologist.

 

The next few weeks were an absolute blur. When I told my employer what our family was facing with my husband and asked them for support so that I could go with him to his doctor appointments, they told me that my job was at risk. I was put on performance notice on 11/15/2021 and told that my job would be at risk if I did not hit my quota for November 2021. Since my job was how our family had health insurance I had to focus on my job and my husband had to navigate a diagnosis on his own. He found out that he has a colloid brain cyst that is in his 3rd left ventricle above his brain stem. Surrounding the cyst was fluid that the neurologist suspected was infected so they treated him with strong antibiotics. The symptoms started to improve around Thanksgiving and we were ready to learn about the net steps. We also need to get a more complete prognosis and plan from our local neurologist as well as a second opinion from someone who specializes in colloid brain cysts. He also needs to get a total body scan to ensure that he does not have any colloid cysts in other parts of his body that could be causing problems or could in the future.

 

Sadly on 12/4/2021 I was fired from my employer, informed my health insurance would end 12/31/2021 and that I was not going to be getting paid the money I expected(earned) for the next few months. Because Josh has been unable to work and having such serious symptoms, we do not have any savings. Things had been going very well for me at work up to October 2021 and I loved my job. I was able to support my family better than I ever had and I knew that Josh would contribute again as soon as he was able. We never thought that my employer would fire me like this and we had no back up plan.

 

For the past 2 weeks we have done everything we could to come up with the money we needed to cover bills and living expenses for our family of 6 for the month of December 2021. Josh and I started Door Dashing together, I was able to get some of the money owed to me for December and I started freelancing in social media marketing. We have not had any time to focus on Josh's health crisis because we don't have money put aside to keep our family afloat. All of our daughters increased their hours at work and we have drastically changed the foods we eat to keep costs down. For Christmas we are trying to focus as a family on being together and not on the things we wanted or asked for.

 

Then we got a little more bad news, Josh was diagnosed with COVID-19 on 12/21/2021 and he had to start quarentining again. We were unable to get to his neurologist appointment in Roanoke and will have to wait until the new year to get in again. All of this stress and worry is not good for Josh's blood pressure which is important for him to keep down.

 

Josh needs support so that he can start focusing on getting his life back and getting back to doing all the things we need him to keep doing because he has been so awesome at supporting others throughout his life! We need a safety net so that Josh can get his second opinion on his colloid brain cyst, focus on fighting for his life and so that I can take care of him when he needs me the most. I will get another job again soon and will be able to support our family like I need too but it is going to take 1-2 months before I have regular income coming in.

 

Any support that you can give will mean more than you know to our family and we will pay it forward as soon as we are back on our feet. I will keep you updated with our family's journey; how Josh takes back control of his health and fights for a long future with us!