Kenny’s Surprise Craniotomy

Starting Monday evening, October 23, 2023 Kenny got a really bad headache. Tuesday morning we thought it was a sinus infection and tried to treat it at home with rest, fluids, and over the counter medicine. By the afternoon he was in so much pain that he allowed me to take him, with our two little boys in tow, to urgent care (his first doctor visit since we started dating ten years ago). He was in so much pain that I had to pull over on the way so he could throw up. They diagnosed it as a migraine, gave him three medicines to treat that, and sent us home to put him to bed. He couldn't sleep at all Monday or Tuesday night because of the pain. Wednesday morning when he woke up he couldn't open his right eye. When I manually opened it the pupil wouldn't constrict and when I told him to look around he said he was trying but his pupil wasn't moving. So his left eye, the working eye, had a small dilated pupil and was moving and looking around while the right eye, the affected eye, had a large pupil and was staring, unmoving, straight ahead. He could see but it was blurry. I called all our parents to come watch the boys and had him at the ER within the hour. They ran MRIs, CT scans, bloodwork, and did an eye exam. Thanks to the suggestion of the resident neurologist the MRI found a mass behind his right eye and referred us to a skull based neurosurgeon after some deliberation between neurology and ophthalmology. We got transferred to Medical City Dallas Wednesday night via ambulance. Thursday morning they ordered another MRI and rolled him right down to the surgery waiting room afterwards to expedite things. He got a craniotomy to remove the mass from 12:30-4:00 PM and I was back with him by 4:30 PM, recovering in the ICU. His neurosurgeon seems confident they were able to remove the entirety of the mass. We’ll know more about it after the biopsy results are complete I’m one to two weeks, but the neurosurgeon believes it’s been there since birth or childhood. We spent Thursday night there and were transferred to a room on the neuro floor Friday morning because his recovery was going so smoothly. We spent one night in that room and we’re discharged and home by Saturday afternoon around 11:30 AM. It has been the longest, hardest, scariest week of our lives, to put it mildly. Kenny has, at the very least, two weeks of recovery ahead of him. I know the hardest part for him will be not picking up and tickling and wrestling his sons, Jack and Archer, who are over the moon to have their daddy back home. I, his wife, have never felt more fortunate to be his wife or for his good health. He is so deeply loved, needed, appreciated, and adored by his family. The greatest gift of all is having him back home so quickly. We already have so many people to thank for their help, love, and support throughout this past week. I know that the bills are going to start piling up on our doorstep and any little bit that someone might be willing to give or do to help our family would be so deeply appreciated.