Cory was attacked on the night of 01/13/2025 unprovoked. He was taken to ECU Health in Greenville, where they left him in the ER for five hours before doing a CT scan. When the CT finally was done and came back, he had a brain bleed of 8 mm. They gave him a few meds to reduce the swelling on his brain. His right eye was affected. He cannot see clearly from it, and he has some sort of optic nerve damage. Otherwise, he was talking and functioning normally, but he was still in ICU for a few days there. They let him go against our better judgement on 1/16/25. He came home with Chris and me that day. Cory was doing great for about 10 days! He was sober, happy, and gaining a new addiction to coffee

On 01/24, he started having a headache that Tylenol was not touching. He wasn’t eating or drinking much at this time. He kept assuring us he was fine. (Stubborn!) On 01/26, around 2pm Myself and my husband, Chris, and I came home from a family function to find Cory on our bathroom floor unresponsive.

At this point, Chris yells to me to call 911. Of course, I do. I then call my (paramedic) dad and stay with Cory while my dad walked me through a few things I could do to assess the situation until the medics arrive. I grabbed Cory’s hand, and he squeezed really hard— which was relieving to me as I knew he was still with us at that point. I asked him to loosen his grip, and he did. I asked him to lift a finger and move his toes— and he did. I asked if he could open his eyes— he could not. He was in a sleeping state but was responsive to a few commands. The medics got there in about 10 minutes. Immediately, they called the bird to life-flight him to New Hanover.

By the time we got to the hospital, they had taken Cory back to emergency brain surgery. This was around 5 p.m. We waited until about 7:30 when the neurosurgeon came to speak with us. She sat us down and basically said Cory had suffered a rebleed. She thinks he had a seizure and maybe fell at home, and that caused the bleeding to start rapidly. She explained they had to do a class 15 craniotomy. She removed the whole front right side of his skull, leaving a bone flap to allow the brain to swell without any brain shift(This will have to be put in with another surgery in 3:4 months). It had doubled in size by this point. Both brain bleed and brain shift was 13mm at this time. She explained to us that he had some grey brain - that they hoped would pink up. We were not (and still don’t know) sure of what deficits he would/will have.

He was woken up on 1/27 —Asking for Baja Blast. Praise GOD. He was talking. He can move and he knows who he is and who we are. He is resilient. So is his brain.

Cory has a long way to go. The most important thing to his brothers is that he feels like he is loved and not alone. We want someone there visiting him every day. So we will be back and forth a lot. We are not sure of how long he will need to be in the hospital or rehab. He has a LONG road ahead of him. He will be staying with us for a while until he is able to be on his own. We then hope to find a place for him to be able to live on his own. Preferably close.

Anything donated will go directly to helping Cory and the family care for him as we navigate this new challenge the Lord has put in front of us. Thank you all for everything. Continued prayers are appreciated.