My Husbands journey

My husband passed out at work on 10-5-2016. He was rushed to the ER where he was diagnosed with a 4 cm mass on his right frontal lobe. His first surgery was 10-10-16 they removed 85% of the tumor. He woke up fine from surgery. They had to take him back in on 10-13-16 to remove the rest. He didn’t wake up after surgery they had to rush him down to CT after they intubated him again. He was then sedated and a ventilator was breathing for him. The came out and said there was no brain bleed but he wasn’t moving his left side before they sedated him.

Two and a half days later they were able to remove the ventilator. He could wiggle his finger and toes on the left side. His memory was gone (short term), he couldn’t walk, he wasn’t making sense. The dr came to me and said we may have been a little to aggressive with the tumor removal but we got it all. After 26 days in the hospital he was moved to a rehab center to learn to walk again and to function like he did pre surgery. Sixty days in rehab and when he came home he could walk, knew who we were, could dress himself, feed him self, and talk to us.

 

Today is 3 months out of rehab and he still attends PT and speech therapy. He has completed 6 weeks of radiation and chemo and we are getting ready to start round 2 of chemo in a week. He doesn’t seem to remember the past 4 years of our lives. Some days he makes me show him documents that we were married he also thinks I am his ex wife at times. It is very frustrating not knowing how he will be when he wakes up from sleeping. I am in this journey forever side by side. We have over come obstacle after obstacle. Currently he has had some brain swelling his right eye turned red with headaches. He is on steroids and we are awaiting the results from his MRI. My husband is a fighter. He sleeps a lot which from what I have read is normal. We will keep fighting this cancer till there is a cure.

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Opinions expressed within this story belong solely to the author and do not reflect the views or opinions of the National Brain Tumor Society.