A post I would like everyone to please take the time to read, help out, and reblog..
raaack:
This beautiful woman right here in the bottom right corner, Nieva Mayo, is my wonderful mother. This picture was taken during Christmas 2011, not too long ago.
Around the beginning of February 2012, my mom was rushed to the hospital because she had a seizure. On the way to the hospital, she had two more cases of seizures. The rest of my family met each other in the ER to make sure nothing was wrong. We assumed it wasn’t anything too serious because seizures are very common, but little did we know it was the start of a nightmare to our family. The seizures were a sign of a mild stroke caused by a small tumor which ruptured part of the brain to cause internal bleeding. Immediately, the doctors scheduled her for brain surgery to remove the tumor. Our family was a nervous wreck spending the whole day at the hospital during her surgery with no sleep. Thank God for a successful operation. A day and a night post surgery, there was a critical emergency and the neurosurgeons had to once again go through surgery because of swelling. If the nurses did not catch the sign of swelling, my mom would have passed away that night. Thank God once again for another successful surgery. She was then hospitalized for about three weeks in the ICU.
After those three long weeks, the doctors finally got lab results of the tumor. My mom was diagnosed with Glioblastoma Multiforme stage 4. Stage 4 is the most severe and aggresive stage. Here is a little background of GBM:
Gliobastoma:
A neurologic evaluation should be done if a patient has slowly increasing signs of mental dysfunction, new seizures, persistent headaches or evidence that there is pressure inside the skull, such as vomiting or swelling or protrusion of the blind spot at the back of the eye. (moms tumor was located in the frontal left lobe of her brain and may lose some vision in her left eye)
A neurologist (a doctor who has received special additional training in the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the brain, spinal cord and nerves) performs a complete examination, which may include a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, a computed tomography (CT or CAT) scan or a chest X-ray to determine if the tumor has spread from another part of the body. An MRI usually finds low-grade astrocytomas earlier than CT. Cerebral angiography is rarely used to diagnose a brain tumor, but it may be done before surgery.
Depending on the patient’s symptoms, specialized tests may be done, including tests of the field of vision, the sharpness of vision and hearing. If the results of other tests are not conclusive, an examination of the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord may be done, although it is usually unnecessary.
Treatment
Treatment of a brain tumor depends on the nature of the tumor, how rapidly it is growing, what symptoms it is causing and where it is located. Radiation therapy is required to treat gliomas. Chemotherapy also benefits some patients with such tumors.
Research is being done on a number of techniques that in the future might help treat gliobastoma multiforme, including:
Radioactive seed implants
Stereotactic radiosurgery
New forms of chemotherapy
Only about one out of every four patients with this type of tumor survives two years. Prospects are better when:
The patient is younger than 45
All or most of the tumor can be removed
The tumor turns out to be an anaplastic astrocytoma, which is one stage less severe than gliobastoma multiforme
The doctors gave us an estimate of only a year remaining… though we will remain optimistic and hope for the 25% chance that she will once recover back to normal again. We will continue to pray and cherish every moment with our mom.
My mom is a very caring wife and a very nurturing mother of four children and three grandchildren. She has not been able to work because of prior health complications. Her husband, Rick Sr., is the sole income to their household. We don’t know what to expect, but we felt we had to get something started to alleviate some of the stress.
Our family has created fundraiser to raise money in order to pay for medical expenses and to help with daily living expenses.
We would appreciate any kind of donation to be sent to the website: http://www.giveforward.com/foreva . There you will find a couple ways to help out our family.
Also, we will soon be making bracelets to help raise donations. So please keep an eye out for that.
Thank you so much for your time reading this post. We are so blessed to have a wonderful mother and will continue to pray for her to become healthy and strong once again. Love you mom, just keep fighting <3
Please help and reblog this to spread the word.. thanks again
Honestly… you know situations like this.. I would never think that something like this would ever happen to me. These past few weeks, everything has been so stressful… my moms situation, full time school, work, emergency bills, gas prices, and now dance. It just sucks cause I’ve been restless from long nights of studying and it sucks being at school the whole day, morning till night. Majority of the time I can’t focus and get in the right mindset because I still feel like I’m in this nightmare and I’m just waiting to wake up to everything normal again and I just wish I can quit everything so I can just spend time with my mom at home. I’ve never felt this depressed in my life.. no motivation, or anything.. so many emotional breakdowns but I’m trying my best to stay up and pretend everything is fine.
After posting this Friday morning before school, I haven’t had any time to use a computer or anything. Looking at it now is making my eyes water with all this support. Thank you guys so much. <3
I honestly wouldn’t know what to do right now without the support from my older brother and sister, and friends. I just gotta keep pushing cause I know my mom wouldn’t want me to be like this.. as long as she’s strong and fighting, I’ll try my best to be strong and fight too. Love you mom.. it’s my turn to take care of you now <3
