For the past few months Colby hasn't been feeling very good. He's had a ringing in his ear, blurred vision, throat/voice issues, and unusually tired. At first he thought maybe he had an ear infection. He went to instacare and they gave him a nasal spray. It didn't help. His vision seemed to be getting worse so he went to the eye doctor. They changed his prescription, but after a week he started noticing bad headaches by the end of the day, which he decided was because his eyes hadn't changed. So he went back and they did an exam and determined he was right, they hadn't changed, so they changed his prescription back. His ear started bothering him more and eventually he went to an ENT dr. He couldn't really find anything, and had a feeling it was something they needed to look into a little more, so he had an MRI scheduled. This week, on Tuesday morning, Colby went for the MRI. They did 3 scans and told us to wait to hear from the dr. Colby heard from him the next morning and he wanted to see him first thing Thursday morning. He didn't waste much time telling us that what they saw on the MRI wasn't normal. He showed us the scan and told us there is a tumor right in the middle of his brain and it's blocking the spinal fluid from circulating the way it should, and causing his discomfort.
We were shocked! Completely blindsided! Nervous. Scared. Mad. The doctor told us he had already sent all of Colby's scans to the neuro surgeon here and we should be hearing from him probably by the first of next week. But Colby, thankfully, asked if we could get another surgeon to look at them. One that he knows from up north. When he told him it was Dr. Reichman he said, "If you can get into him, you should!" As soon as we left there Colby called Kent, who is friends with Reichman and asked him to call him and tell him all of this. Later that evening, about 6:00 he called us and told us to get on a plane and get up north, but there were no more flights that night. We had my dad come and give us both a blessing, and help give Noah and Cutler one also. Then we packed up our kids and left town at 10:30 last night. We dropped the kids off at Makayla's, and drove up to Sandy to get a hotel room. We finally climbed into bed at 3:30, and had to get up by 7:00.
We were shocked! Completely blindsided! Nervous. Scared. Mad. The doctor told us he had already sent all of Colby's scans to the neuro surgeon here and we should be hearing from him probably by the first of next week. But Colby, thankfully, asked if we could get another surgeon to look at them. One that he knows from up north. When he told him it was Dr. Reichman he said, "If you can get into him, you should!" As soon as we left there Colby called Kent, who is friends with Reichman and asked him to call him and tell him all of this. Later that evening, about 6:00 he called us and told us to get on a plane and get up north, but there were no more flights that night. We had my dad come and give us both a blessing, and help give Noah and Cutler one also. Then we packed up our kids and left town at 10:30 last night. We dropped the kids off at Makayla's, and drove up to Sandy to get a hotel room. We finally climbed into bed at 3:30, and had to get up by 7:00.
We met with the surgeon, Dr. Richard Tippetts, this morning and he explained a lot to us. I'm not good at remembering every little detail, and especially big dr. words so in my own words...
Colby has a tumor that is smack in the middle of his brain causing the two side ventricles to dilate, and also the back top ventricle to swell, in his words, hugely abnormal. They will place a shunt in this afternoon to drain the fluid, they will take some of the fluid and have it tested to see what they're really dealing with. Dr. Tippetts calls it a Germinoma. And I haven't done my research yet, so I don't know what it is. He's fairly certain they'll have to do surgery, but he won't let us get that far yet. He says that most of the time these are benign, but there's always a chance.
That's basically what I know for now. We are incredibly grateful for everyones concern, texts, calls, and prayers. We truly are blessed to have such amazing family and friends so close and who care so much! I can honestly say, I NEVER thought this would happen to us! I have best friends that have had to deal with this or worse, and never never never thought I would be on this side of the message.
Colby has a tumor that is smack in the middle of his brain causing the two side ventricles to dilate, and also the back top ventricle to swell, in his words, hugely abnormal. They will place a shunt in this afternoon to drain the fluid, they will take some of the fluid and have it tested to see what they're really dealing with. Dr. Tippetts calls it a Germinoma. And I haven't done my research yet, so I don't know what it is. He's fairly certain they'll have to do surgery, but he won't let us get that far yet. He says that most of the time these are benign, but there's always a chance.
That's basically what I know for now. We are incredibly grateful for everyones concern, texts, calls, and prayers. We truly are blessed to have such amazing family and friends so close and who care so much! I can honestly say, I NEVER thought this would happen to us! I have best friends that have had to deal with this or worse, and never never never thought I would be on this side of the message.
We sat our kids down last night when we knew we needed to leave town and explained what we could to them. They cried, we all cried, knowing it isn't something good to be going through. But Noah, he's old enough to know it's serious business. He's scared to death and a huge worrier!! Please please pray for my kids to be comforted and know that our Heavenly Father loves them, and is there for them. We know there is a plan for each one of us. Some roads are harder than others, and we've been given a turn on our straight path we felt we were on. But we know there's a purpose for it and we're ready to learn from it.
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