Hello.

I’m just reaching out to ask your love, prayers and support.

My family has undergone a lot in the past two months. In late November after a health scare which brought my dad into the Emergency Room, we found out my fathers kidney cancer had returned. While waiting for the oncology appointment; he took a turn for the worse.

At the end of November, he suffered a stroke, followed by two seizures that same night in the Marinette Emergency Room. I'll never forget it, I was holding his hand crying, trying to understand the slurred\mumbled words he was trying to say as he went into his second seizure. That is a feeling I never want anyone to go through, I thought my dad was leaving this earth that night. My heart shattered into a millions helpless pieces. He was stabilized and moved to ICU.

After many tests and scans, it was found he had a 4cm brain tumor causing these issues. He couldn’t speak, eat or move for numerous days from the severity of the stroke, thankfully he was able to recover with the help of the amazing staff in the Aurora ICU.

Our family cannot thank everyone enough for their kindness and patience during those first days.

He was released from ICU after four days and we could bring him home with a new referral to BayCare clinic in Green Bay. We now were up against two serious medical scares, one was enough, two now felt crushing. We met with the Neurosurgeon at BayCare and that's when they sent us down to Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee as it was too much and to advanced for Green Bay to handle.

We met Dr. Mueller and his team on Tuesday, December 5th for our first clinic visit in Milwaukee. Well, they surprised us and admitted my dad that day. They needed to perform surgery immediately, this is life or death. Friday, he had what we now know would be the first of two surgeries, they removed the tumor and surrounding brain matter, to discover a second tumor, they had to close him and monitor the second tumor while he recovered, as that would have been a much larger surgery than they were prepared to do. My father suffered a second stroke during his first surgery. He now has blindness in his left eye, weakness on the whole left side and many impaired cognitive skills\verbal skills and needs 24-hour care and assistance with all daily activities.

After monitoring the second tumor for two days, it doubled in size. Dr. Mueller met with us as a family and gave us the news of the second aggressive tumor and that even though this carried high risks, it was in my dad's best interest to go back in for a second surgery to remove the second tumor or as much as they safely could. That following Monday they went in for a second surgery to remove that second tumor. We are beyond grateful for the team who handled his care and procedures.

Now the hard part started, he wanted to come home so badly but needed 24 hour care. We stayed down with him for the first week, but began traveling back and forth for visits, breaking our hearts every day to say goodbye and hear him beg to come home and be with his family. My sister, Jessica and her Husband Shane, both volunteers of the Rescue Squad, worked with hospital staff and agreed they would be taking my father in and providing his care from their home so we could bring him home with us. He was such a happy man to get out of the hospital and be back close to home. This was not an easy decision as it’s very stressful and emotionally draining for everyone in our family to take turns caring for him, Taking turns staying up all night to ensure if he wakes and needs help, someone is there. As I mentioned earlier, he suffered major brain trauma from the strokes and removal of brain tissue with the tumors so getting around is not as it use to, someone is with him every step. He needs someone walking with him at all times. He now uses a walker, a support belt and someone on his left side to help him learn to move around with the loss of vision and weakness on that side.

Fast forward two more weeks we got the final pathology results back, Glioblastoma. Terminal brain cancer stage four. They gave my dad a maximum of 15 months left to live with treatment, we don’t know the true amount of time, no one does unfortunately but watching my father dwindle away so quickly has been heartbreaking and gut wrenching to my whole family. Watching his face the moment he learned of this tumor is forever burned into my brain, I watched the strongest man in my life just crippled with emotion. The unimaginable is becoming reality. My parents did not have any Insurance since my dad can’t\hasn't been able to work and my mom worked too many hours at her job trying to help make ends meet. We were able to finally get them qualified for Michigan Medicaid, but in doing so my mom had to drop her hours at work so they could qualify for the insurance, Which in turn dropped their household income to very little.

Thankfully Insurance has taken care of most of the hospital bills but does not cover any of his medications, living expenses or the bills racking up. We have been sharing the cost of this but it’s not an easy burden. Once we begin Chemotherapy and Radiation, the pills will stack up and I cannot fathom the price of these medications without insurance assistance. Any help you are willing assist with would be beyond appreciated by my entire family. We want to cherish this time we have left and show him everyone’s love and support.

We will be hosting a Benefit in his name February 17th at Loopys in Loomis. We will update that and more as we begin this journey as a family.