The Beginning

So my Dad has recently received some serious medical news. We have decided to start this blog in the hopes that we can keep everyone as updated as possible on his condition, especially once we confirm a diagnoses and determine the best way to treat whatever is going on. We love getting phones calls, texts, etc however as time progresses, it will be difficult to make sure we keep everyone in the loop everyday. As a family, we just thought this would be the easiest way for everyone to receive day to day updates.

For those that don't know, I am Rich's oldest daughter Ashley. I will be updating this blog as much as possible since Mikayla (Rich's youngest daughter) will be in school while the majority of this is occurring and since I don't really know what I'm doing, would be extremely difficult to explain things to Mom. So.. here I am.

On Wednesday, July 22nd, Mom noticed that the left side of Dad's face was drooping a little bit and that he was kind of talking only out of the right side of his mouth. Dad said he felt fine and neither one of them really thought too much about it and they continued their evening like normal. The next day, July 23rd, Mom noticed the same thing happening while Dad was staining the banister in the kitchen. They then decided that he should probably go get checked out so that night they went to the hospital (and if you know my father, he had to finish staining the banister first!) and Dad was still feeling fine. We found out later that Dad's left hand had also begun to lose function and feeling over the past week but he just thought it was carpal tunnel.

I was at work at the time and Mom texted and asked if I was working. I told her I was and her only response was "OK". I ended up calling her and she told me that Dad was in the hospital. At first I thought she meant her dad, my Grandpa, but after clarifying, I knew it was something fairly serious if Dad had gone to the hospital. I debated leaving work versus staying and decided to leave. I picked up my sister at home and we headed to the hospital. The drive from Wentzville to the hospital never felt so long...

Once at the hospital, we learned that they had ran all of the standard tests like blood work, etc. They had also done a CT Scan which had showed a spot on his brain, however it was not detailed enough to tell exactly what it was. Eventually a doctor came in and told us that they were going to admit Dad overnight and that they would do an MRI and have him meet with a neurosurgeon in the morning. Dad absolutely HATES just sitting around so we knew this would be miserable for him to just sit around all night. The nurses on Dad's floor said that his doctor usually made his rounds early in the morning and we could probably expect him to show up around 7 am.

Mom got to the hospital extremely early the next morning in hopes of meeting with the doctor. By the time I got to the hospital around 9am, the doctor still hadn't been in to see him and they had no clue when the MRI would be done. Dad and I played a couple rounds of double solitaire and did countless laps around the floor, just to try and pass the time. Around 10:30 the nurse told us that radiology said they were on their way to come get him for the scan. We waited and waited and waited and they never came. Somewhere between 12 and 12:30, Dad went ahead and ordered lunch. I had to leave around 1:15 to go to work and the still hadn't taken him for his MRI. Finally around 2:30pm they took him down to radiology.

At 4:30ish, Mom said they still hadn't met with the doctor. However, around 5:30pm, I got a phone call from Mom, asking me to come home and that Dad was going to need surgery but didn't want to say anything more over the phone. After making arrangements to leave work, I headed to Mom and Dad's house. 

Dad's neurosurgeon, Dr. Martin, believes there is a tumor approximately 2-2.5 inches in size, fairly deep inside his brain. There is no way to know for sure how long it has been there, but he is guessing around 3 or 4 months. Up until recently, Dad has had no signs or symptoms, no pain or headaches. Dr. Martin says that he has been wrong before about these things and it's a possibility that he's wrong and it is only an infection, however they won't know until after surgery. Dr. Martin wants to do surgery as soon as possible, possibly as early as this Friday, July 31st. He would remove around 85% of the tumor and then after the surgery, they would biopsy the tumor and determine if it was cancerous. If that is the case, Dad would go through radiation and chemotherapy to get rid of everything that the surgery did not remove. Post surgery, he would also have physical and occupational therapy. Absolute worse case scenario, Dad would have 14 months left to live.

Dad is getting a second opinion and will be seeing a doctor at Wash U tomorrow afternoon, 7/28. Whatever future action he decides to take will be made after that doctor's visit.

Dad is no longer allowed to drive or work but he has still been doing small projects around the house. While I was over there yesterday for a family BBQ, he was working on touching up the paint in the bathroom and hung some pictures and shelves. He will be retiring from work and Mom has taken a leave of absence from her work in order to spend time with Dad and make sure he gets where he needs to be. (***Edit: Dad is going temporarily on disability leave until we know for sure what is going on and what the long term picture is. He is not retiring as of right now.***)

I think I included everything that I know as of now.. I will update as often as I can. All we can do at this point is pray and trust that God has a plan for all of this. If anyone has any questions, feel free to leave a comment (I think this blog will allow comments...? I'm still learning) or contact any of us via phone, text, Facebook, email, whatever. Like I said before, we don't want this to discourage any other communication, all the calls that we have gotten so far have been extremely supportive and encouraging and I believe that as time goes on, we will need more and more of that.