Joseph Shephard is 29 years old and works in law enforcement at the Jackson Police Department. He lives in Lexington, TN with his wife Hailey Shephard, and their two beautiful little girls, Aubrey and Marlie (8 and 3). For the past few months Joseph has been experiencing some progressively worsening right sided weakness. What started as a slight weakness in the right arm progressed to difficulty moving the right hand and trouble lifting his right leg. A recent brain MRI showed a 3.6 cm cystic tumor in the left midbrain on the brain stem. On April 23rd Joseph will be undergoing major brain surgery at Vanderbilt hospital. The surgery will last 10+ hours. Because of the location of the tumor he has significant risks associated with the operation, such as difficulty walking afterwards and even permanent blindness. His neurosurgeon feels confident the tumor pathology will likely be benign however we will not know until several days following the surgery if this is cancerous. His recovery is expected to be at least 2 months with extensive rehabilitation and therapy following the surgery. We do not know if he will regain the function that has already been lost and we won’t know if additional treatments will be required until after the surgery (radiation, chemo, additional surgeries, etc.). We do know that this is going to dramatically change his life as well as his family’s life. Not only will Joseph be out of work for an extended period of time but Hailey will need to be off quite a bit to take care of him. No one can prepare for something like this, emotionally or financially. We are asking that anyone who feels lead to donate or offer monetary assistance during this time, do so through this go fund me page. Your love, prayers, support, and words of encouragement during this difficult time means more to us than anyone could ever know! We will try to keep everyone updated about his journey as much as possible. If you are looking for updates or ways to help, please reach out to me through text or messenger, and not Hailey. Please do not overwhelm her or his family with questions as they are doing their best to take this day by day and get through it together. We love you all and ask that you please continue to pray hard over Joseph and his family!

-April