Joseph's Journey

Hello, My name is Matilda Brown.. For the past 6 months my 16 year old son Joseph had been complaining of severe headaches, we made several trips back and forth to the ER only to be told it was post-concussion syndrome from a previous fall. Not one day passed he did not have a headache. It started to become an issue with the school, as they had accused my son a faking it or lying, he just sits in class and stares off in the distance they said, he has a nonchalant attitude they said, they threatened to file truancy against him and put me in jail for not sending him to school. As a mother. I knew something was wrong. Joseph has straight A's in math, technology and science. On January 4th 2023 around 2:30 a.m. on awoke to my son standing in front of me, his right hand was extended out as if he was reaching for me just a couple feet from me he didn't quite make it and he was frozen in time, I called out to his name and he did not respond I quickly jumped up startled knowing something terrible was wrong I dialed 911, and upon the paramedics arrival they had immediately assessed that he had had a seizure. Once we got him to the emergency room he was given a CT scan, shortly after they came back and needed to run it again with contrast, I knew them something was wrong. The report came back that he had a mass a stroke and there was a mass located in the temporal lobe of his brain, they immediately transferred Joseph to Stanford Children's Pediatric Hospital. Once at the hospital they explained to us that Joseph had been having Absence seizures, he was taken in for an MRI where a tumor was found in his temporal lobe. He was placed on an EEG machine, the first night it was calculated he had seven seizures. I was so overwhelmed and alarmed. Getting to the hospital was a journey itself as I had my 13 year old daughter with me. We drove here with three tires and a spare and our check engine light on. But I would have rode on four flats for my baby. He was put on keppra, vimpat and a variety of other seizure medicines and decadron to relieve the swelling in his brain. By Friday he was going in for a biopsy, by tuesday it was determines that the tumor was cancer and they needed to go in as soon as possible to try to remove some of the tumor to relieve some of the pressure because he was at the maximum dosage of decadron which is used for the inflamation of his brain. We are waiting for the final results of the pathology to come back, but the plan is to perform an intraoperative brain mapping. Which means once they get to the portion of his brain that they need to reach they will then wake him up and perform the procedure so that they can identify important functions of his brain to reduce the risk of damage. Following his treatments he will begin radiation therapy. To have a child that has never been sick in his life this has really been a blow to our soul Joseph has always been a fun loving and outgoing person. He is such a great teenager with such high Ambitions for his future his plans were to go into the military in a couple of years. I'm a 46-year-old widowed parent, We lost his father 2 years ago to kidney failure. Joseph is the type of person that would drop what he was doing to help you out no matter the time or place he's always willing to help and go the extra mile, he has the most beautiful smile in the world and has and it is what it is attitude. We are seeking funds to help with Joseph's medical bills and living expenses for myself and bird as we have to have food and housing here at Stanford. No matter how big or small your donations will greatly help us. More than anything we ask you to keep Joseph and all of us in your prayers as he goes through this most difficult Journey. The road will be long and hard but with Joseph I know all things are going to work out because he is truly a trooper. God bless you..