How it Began

The first question we have been getting is "Did you know this was coming?"  The answer is no.  At the beginning of October Dan was hunting up near New Meadows when he jumped out of the truck and had a moment of light headedness.  It passed and he never thought any more of it.  A few weeks later, while traveling for work, he woke up with a horrible case of dizziness and vomiting and went to an urgent care clinic.  Dan had noticed a little pressure in his ears, and with his prior history of having terrible allergies and sinus issues, it looked like he had a bad sinus infection.  The doctor prescribed and antibiotic and anti-inflammatory.  This is when the symptoms began to get masked....the anti-inflammatory reduced the inflammation around his tumor and gave him some relief.  When the medications ran out, the symptoms came back.  Dan followed up with an ENT PA in town, and based on the symptoms, determined that he likely had an inner ear infection.  He gave him a stronger and longer dose of antibiotics and another anti-inflammatory, again giving relief to the symptoms.  Once again, when the dosage was done, with symptoms came back.

Dan and Jack carving pumpkins this year

The light headedness upon standing became a more prominent issue.  As you can image, Dan was really frustrated.  The ENT PA told him he was fine.  He followed up with his GP which diagnosed him as having Positional Vertigo.  A couple of really rough days followed, and with Dan's mounting frustration, our Chiropractor referred him to a PT who specialized in Vertigo treatment.  His appointment was Monday, November 12. It was during that appointment the PT (our Angel, Connie at STARS), got to witness his lightheadedness first hand.  They noticed his pupils dilated to two different sizes.  She knew something was wrong and sent him immediately over to the emergency room.  After 8 gruelling hours of tests and waiting at the emergency room, Dan came home to tell me the results-there was a tumor in his brain.  My world stopped.

The emergency room had set up a referral for a Neurosurgeon, Dr. Montalbano, for Wednesday morning, November 14.  The next day and a half was filled with fear, sorrow, tears, and lots of questions as we waited to find out what we were dealing with.  At the doctors appointment we were told the tumor was about the size of an apricot, located in the back of the head in the cerebellum.  It had begun to block the channel of the brain stem where spinal fluid drains.  Dan needed to have it removed soon, as left in his brain, were were looking at no more than 3 weeks before it would become fatal.  What we didn't share with everyone was the fact that Dan had two additional lesions in his brain.  The other two were much smaller, but still a concern.  Until the tumor could be removed and biopsied, we weren't sure what we were dealing with.  We knew telling everyone about all 3 tumors would be really overwhelming, and at this point, we couldn't answer any questions.  So we opted to stick with the things we did know, and give ourselves time to process what we could be facing in our very near future.  Surgery was scheduled for Tuesday, November 20 at St. Luke's Boise.

Thanks to a heavy duty anti-inflammatory, Dan actually felt pretty good the week leading up to the surgery.  We were so thankful for the time to get some things in order, arrange leave from our employers, get my parents out here to stay with Jack, and have time as a family.  We took Jack swimming nearly everyday, managed to squeeze in a date night, and overall just hung out.   What we weren't prepared for was the next few days to come.....