Hutch and Josiah Sherman Education Fund

As many of you know that in 2014 Mike had a seizure while at home taking a nap. He was diagnosed with a stage 2-3 glioma in his brain. After nearly 2 months of consideration and planning with his congenital cardiologist, Mike went to the OR at Barnes-Jewish Hospital for a craniotomy to remove the tumor. He spent 6 weeks in the hospital and then was discharged with a 98% tumor resection. Since that time, Mike has been monitored by his neurosurgeon with frequent MRIs. In 2018 we received news that we were not expecting: the 2% had started to grow again.

On Thursday, April 19th, Mike began radiation and chemotherapy to hopefully shrink his tumor. It is a treatment to give him a few more years until he needs more treatment. At this time there is no cure. Thankfully, Mike was able to take oral chemotherapy as he is not a good candidate for a port since he has to take blood thinners.

In 2022, while on vacation, Mike had an unexpected seizure. Over the summer they increased in frequency and sometimes duration and intensity. An urgent MRI was completed and the tumor was slowly expanding. We were, once again, going through chemo and radiation to slow the growth of his tumor. Mike did great with his radiation and chemo and with the help of some wonderful physical and occupational therapists, he was able to start driving again in April. He remained on chemo as it was a 12-month cycle.

The day before Mother's Day 2023, Mike experienced his first seizure in 7.5 months. This seizure was similar to his previous seizures but also had a lot of differences. For about three weeks he continued to have some seizures, decreased ability to use his right arm and leg, difficulty speaking, cognitive issues, and falls. On Sunday, 06/04, he fell twice and despite assistance from our boys, he was unable to get off the floor. After taking him to the ER and having further testing, it was determined that the chemotherapy was no longer working. The MRI showed that the tumor had grown rapidly since his MRI 6 weeks earlier. He was seen by all the services and it was determined that even if he wasn't on warfarin, the tumor was inoperable. Also, radiation is not an option since he had already had it twice. We are left with one last viable treatment option. Experimental immunotherapy. The oncologist is anxious to start his treatment right away.

As a hospital patient, all of his recommendations were for inpatient rehab. He could not walk and was still having issues forming words. They started looking into sending him to the Rehabilitation Institute of St. Louis. However, they were unable to find an inpatient rehab center that would be able to give him the IV medication to start his immunotherapy treatments. Our choice was to not treat his rapidly growing tumor and go to inpatient rehab to treat the symptoms caused by the tumor until discharge and then treat the tumor -or- deal with the symptoms while starting to treat the rapidly growing tumor hoping that it will help the symptoms while we try to keep him safe at home.

Well... we didn't see where we had a choice. The tumor grew so much in just 6 weeks, I don't want to know what would happen if we wait another 6-8 weeks to start treatment. So, I took him home. Even though the recs were for inpatient rehab, the doctors thought this was the best decision. We were provided with an order for in-home speech, physical, and occupational therapy, a urinal, a bedside commode, a wheelchair, and a crap ton of steroids.

What we need now, and why you are here, is a way to keep Mike home and safe as long as we still have him. We need to widen a couple of doorways to accommodate his wheelchair. We also need to have some modifications done to our shower so we can get him and keep him from falling. Finally, we have an open stairway that leads to our finished bathroom. We need to replace the railing at the top of the stairs so we can add a gate just in case Mike falls.

I know that times are tough for everyone. Believe me, this is the last thing I want to do, but I will do just about anything to make sure that we can keep Mike home with us as long as we still have them. Even if you cannot donate, please pray for health, healing, and peace.

Please see our Caring Bridge link below. Please DO NOT donate through Caring Bridge as those funds go to Caring Bridge and not to the people on the site. Thank you for your prayer and your consideration.

Mike, Kari, Hutch, and Josian Sherman

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/georgemichaelsherman