Queen (Humble)Bee Needs Our Support

Hi! I’m Kayla. Many of you in the community probably know me as someone who just recently recovered from a 12-hr brain surgery for a benign brain tumor removal. Upon hearing that Humblebee Cafe owner Megan Tyler was recently diagnosed with a benign brain tumor that will (also) require major surgery to preserve her quality of life, I knew I needed to do something to help.

Backstory: After a work-up 10 years ago, including an MRI scan, Megan was initially diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia due to severe facial pain. Ten years later, after another MRI scan, it has been determined her brain tumor was missed on the initial MRI, allowing it 10 years to grow and saturate the pons area of her brain. The pons is part of a highway-like structure between the brain and the body (the brainstem), and relays information about motor function, sensation, eye movement, hearing, taste, and more. Without medical intervention, not only will Megan’s life be at risk, her quality of life will be as well.

Surgery: Because of the location of Megan’s tumor, she will require two back-to-back surgeries, allowing surgeons to better access to resect the tumor by entering through two different locations in her skull. She is planning on having surgery at EMMC in Bangor.

Currently, Megan does not have health insurance to cover her surgery, although she is jumping through endless hoops trying to obtain it. She is also busy juggling running her relatively new business, Humblebee Cafe, and being a mother, wife, sister, daughter, and friend.

The massive stress from a diagnosis like this is life shattering: the financial stress, the stress of not knowing what it will be like on the other side of surgery and if you’ll still really be “you,” or if you’ll even make it through. Fortunately, I had health insurance; I did see the bill from my one surgery at Mass General, however. It was $200,000. That figure does not include the accrued travel costs and lost wages that Megan and her family will also be facing.

Having known Megan through mutual connections since I was a little girl (and being a diehard fan of Humblebees), and knowing the many hardships that accompany a diagnosis like this, I am asking that we do as much as we can to support her and her family during this trying time.

Let’s allow her and her family to experience the magic this community can generate ❤️