Support Owen's Battle with a Brain Tumor

Update on Owen 03/04/25

We found out he has what is called a Juvenile Pilocytic Astrocytoma tumor and it is stage 1 and we will have to do chemotherapy to treat it.

Here in the next week Owen will under go another surgery to place a port in his chest which will give direct access to his artery to push his chemo through and any other medications to help limit how much he would need poked and proded.

Once he is up from the port surgery they will do his first dose of chemotherapy and we will be admitted to Dayton Children’s for that to see how he handles it.

After first dose of chemotherapy he will begin weekly chemotherapy treatments for 10 weeks. After he hits 10 weeks it will go down to once a month chemotherapy treatment for 12 months.

At the end of his 12 month treatment we will do another MRI on the tumor to see if we need to extend the treatment or if it does shrink very significantly then we can debate pros and cons of surgery to remove it.

Every 3 months for the next year he will undergo an MRI to check on the tumor and see how it’s taking the chemotherapy.

The hope is to shrink the tumor down to an operable size because the size of it as of right now is way too risky/ dangerous to remove due to where it’s located in the brain.

My name is Brittney and I am reaching out for financial help as one of my closest friends has had their life flipped upside down within the last month. If you can take some time to read their story and SHARE, pray, send good vibes, healing and love their way, they would be beyond thankful and grateful.

Hello family and friends,

Our son Owen (3yrs old) has been through the wringer lately. On Thursday 01/16 he had a seizure while at preschool so the next day 01/17 we took him to neurology at Dayton Children’s which they gave him an emergency seizure medication and scheduled us to come back in mid March for a 24 hr EEG and MRI. Well around Jan 20th he started having issues walking, keeping balance and staying awake. These behaviors kept progressing to the point of him not being able to sit up unassisted, leaning constantly to the right, not being able to walk at all let alone keep himself up in a chair with back support or keep himself awake. Tuesday 02/04 we brought him to Dayton Children’s ER and asked for testing to be done earlier rather than to keep waiting until mid march and upon that we were admitted Tuesday afternoon with an MRI following that on Wednesday morning 02/05 and which we got the test results of him having a golf ball sized tumor in the third Ventricle of his brain which was blocking the pathway of fluid to pass freely from the spinal cord and the brain so all of the fluid built up in the brain approximately 78ml of fluid and raised his brain pressure to 35% (a normal brain pressure for someone his age and size is 15%). Given that discovery we had to sign consent for him to have emergency brain surgery Thursday morning 02/06 to alleviate that pressure and to essentially make an artificial valve to help that fluid drain around and underneath the tumor. Now for the tumor they took a biopsy and it was sent straight to ST. Jude’s hospital and we are still waiting 10-14 days for the pathology results on that to decipher what the next steps of treatment or surgery will be for Owen.

Owen currently is stable and out of the ICU (moved to the oncology floor) but we are still at Dayton Children’s waiting for his basic motor skills to return. He had an MRI today 02/07 that showed that the artificial valve is working and his fluid levels have already dropped to 64 ml which is awesome being only 24 hours post operation.

We are still waiting 10-14 days for Owen’s pathology results on the tumor and then we will be back here at the hospital (assuming we are discharged in between) and that is also the same week as my due date.

I (Tiffany his mother) am 38 weeks pregnant and his father (Michael) is our main provider for our family. He has been by our sides and helping me navigate this crazy journey we have been placed on but unfortunately he only gets 7 days of PTO and we were originally planning to split those days for when I went into labor with our 3rd baby and then my own personal surgery. I myself will also have to have a Hernia surgery 6 weeks postpartum. Which is also during the time we will have a new treatment plan for Owen’s tumor and having to navigate that as well.

Outside of new diagnosis and surgeries I have 4 weekly appointments that Preston (our second child) attends (OT, PT, Speech and in home therapy/help me grow). Owen also attends 2 weekly appointments prior to his new surgery and neurological issues (OT & Speech) and after we are discharged from the hospital he will have to start completing weekly Physical therapy as well.

We have been dealt a difficult hand for this year and are doing our absolute best to try and make it through that.

Thank you to everyone who has read this far.

With great love & care,

Tiffany Holsclaw & Michael O’Dell