Support for Goodie's Family

I will begin by giving you all some history of us. Michael and I were living as any other normal newlyweds would be. Traveling, working out, planning for the future, raising the kids (Michael has always called them his kids, never his step-children).  We were looking forward to buying a home and settling down together into our married lives.

 

The day before Michael was hospitalized, he was feeling fine. He had spent the day negotiating the purchase of a car for his daughter Sophia.  Later that night, though, something started to go wrong. Michael was not feeling right, and he ended up having a seizure. That was unexpected, and so we decided to seek medical attention at the hospital emergency room.

 

The ER staff was supportive and reassuring; they were quick to say how strong and young Michael was, and that they would probably give him some fluids, and he would be good to go. But, to be on the safe side, they suggested that they should do an MRI.  After what seemed to be hours of waiting for the results, Michael was suddenly admitted directly to the ICU and scheduled for immediate emergency brain surgery to biopsy the lesion that was found. He made it through the surgery, and just 6 hours later, he was walking, talking, and seemed back to himself. 

 

It took weeks for the results to come back, and the news was bad. Michael was just 45 years old, and we were given the diagnosis of Glioblastoma stage 4 multiform. How do you absorb that kind of news? We had only been married a year and a half, and Michael was being given an expectation of just 12-18 months to live. I immediately stopped working so that I could manage Michael's care and treatment schedule.

 

We immediately started researching the disease, spending hours upon hours trying to learn everything that we could about it. We changed our diets to KETO, kept working out, and Michael was cleared to go back to work. This was critical to him, as he has always had a strong drive and work ethic. Setting the right example for his kids meant showing them how to be responsible, and at the same time, how to be a fighter.

 

Michael found he was able to work and managed to do very well. While going through his 42 days of chemo and radiation, Michael never missed a day of work.  He was closing deals and felt happy at being back working as part of a team. We were able to do some traveling after his 1st round of treatment, and that helped lift us all up.  He continued on chemo for over two years, always scheduling the treatment at night so that he would be able to work in the morning. 

 

Michael had a recurrence exactly two years after being diagnosed.  He was scheduled for a second surgery, but afterward, he was not able to rebound like he did the first time. He was feeling much more depleted, and the daily activity that he could manage was decreasing.  We became aware of a clinical trial and were initially hopeful when Michael was able to take part. The treatment was extremely hard on his body, though. Michael was fighting for his life but found that he could not continue with the program. He was taken off the trial just after Thanksgiving, 2019. He is now home and under hospice care, and his cancer is showing signs of new growth. 

 

Michael has always put his family first. He has made the choice to stop further chemotherapy and limit any further medical intervention so that he could have the remainder of his life have some measure of quality. The plans we talk about now are plans for life after he has left us. He talks about how, with his love for rugby, that he would like for his ashes to be scattered on a rugby field in Italy. He worries about how the kids will fair, not being able to benefit from his loving guidance when he is no longer with us to counsel them.  He just wants to be with his wife Laurie and their kids Justin, Sophia, and the youngest twins Hanna and Hayden, in the time that remains.  For now, that is everything. 

 

Ever the fighter, we have been focused on Michael's ability through sheer will and strength to hang on. As of last Tuesday, we hit the final stages of our journey together as Michael was admitted into Tampa General Hospital's hospice LifePath. This leaves us very little time to guide Michael on and me to come up with a plan to care for and provide for our children and myself. While we had support from kind people, and we were able to gain access to Michael's life insurance early, we have depleted the reserves we had fighting for Michael's life. As I cared for Michael, I earned no income. We are about to head back out into a different world, and we need to ask for the support of our family and friends to plan and start our next journey.

 

We are setting a target of $75,000, which will give us six months to take care of Hanna and Hayden and set me up with a path forward so we can fight forward as Michael has always done.