Hi, my son-in-law, Josh is an amazing dad of 2 and a sweet husband to my daughter. The family is such a tight unit with them and their 2 girls, age 8 and 4. After always being the first to offer help to anyone and spending so much of his time volunteering with church, he could use some help. Sadly, he is dealing with some terrible health issues.

Josh was born with the genetic condition NF-1. That caused him to be more apt to develop certain illnesses.

Josh has recently been found to have 2 tumors in his right temporal brain and multiple nerve sheath tumors along his lower spine.

He experiences multiple seizures a day, severe headaches, chronic pain, gastrointestinal/digestive issues and trouble sleeping. His wife, Kaylee has had to take a leave of absense from work to take care of him, take him to appointments and tend to him during recovery post-op. He had been on long term medical leave from work but after a department wide lay off at his work they denied his claim leaving their family with a legal battle to appeal the denial. They are trying to get by on minimal income creating quite the struggle for the family on top of everything else they are facing.

The specialists at both UMASS and MGH have both recommended brain surgery to remove the tumors in his brain. The procedure he has to go through will require a keyhole craniotomy on the right side of his head. It is anticipated to be a 5 hour surgery with a 1-2 month recovery.

They can’t with certainty diagnosis the type of tumor with out the pathology results following surgical removal. So at this time they can't say if its cancerous or not. Also, the surgeons have warned that there are added long term risks due to the tumors being deep seated and requiring them to pass through healthy areas of the brain.

As of right now the doctor's main concern is removing the brain tumor but they have mentioned that once recovered the most likely treatment option for the nerve-sheath tumors would be Chemotherapy.

He is also slowly losing his sight because of it.

Surgery is scheduled for Oct 18th 2023. See Kaylee's updates on this ... but yay!

We have had some people reach out about a meal train for the family, however they are still at the hospital the majority of the time. Gift cards to Dunkin, Five Guys, Panera, other places that deliver to the hospital, or gas stations would be very appreciated. Thank you all for your support through this!