Taking a Leave to Be With My Son Chase

On Thursday, March 21, our beloved friend, caring teacher, adoring dad, son and brother Chase, was diagnosed with a walnut sized mass in his right frontal lobe. A later MRI showed that this mass in his brain was cancerous and it needed to be removed as soon as possible. Chase had been experiencing nausea, vomiting, and headaches for days/weeks intermittently since Thanksgiving. Thinking it was a gastro-intestinal illness, he was relieved as his symptoms subsided. However, in January this continued and again in March. Multiple doctors could not find any GI illness to explain his symptoms. When these symptoms were accompanied by a migraine, his wife Lindsay took him to the ER where they did a CT scan and found the tumor. Chase underwent surgery March 26 where doctors miraculously removed the entire tumor. While we are all relieved, we received the sad news that his tumor is a stage 4 Glioblastoma. Since March, my son received news of tumor recurrence with two new tumors showing in an MRI in August which knocked him out of the clinical trials that he was originally on. Then just a month later, we were up to over 20 tumors in his brain and about a dozen through his spine. As this disease continues to grow in my son, he has not lost his hope, strength and sense of humor. On October 29, he had a VP shunt surgically put in to help allow the build up of cerebrospinal fluid to properly drain. Currently, Chase cannot get out of bed or do any basic tasks without assistance. We are still searching for clinical trials or alternative sources of treatment as well, but our main focus is to make him as comfortable as possible. Thank you for allowing me to spend precious time with my son and our family.