Sometime in October, Amber thought her left ear went 'shut' and anything she tried did not get it to open again. Her hearing was not good. After several doctor appointments, she was sent to an ENT, who in turn sent her for extensive hearing tests. The results of the hearing test showed that she had significant hearing loss in her left ear. The ENT told her some possibilities of what could be causing the hearing loss and sent her for an MRI. The results of the MRI were not what the ENT expected. It showed she had an Acoustic Neuroma, which is a vestibular schwannoma tumor on her brain, connecting to her inner ear. The good news is these tumors are benign and slow growing. These tumors tend to be at a very delicate location and surgery to remove them often leaves a person completely deaf in the affected ear. If left go, in time it would have caused other damages such as dizziness/imbalance, headaches, ringing in the ear, facial paralysis and more. Amber had already been noticing a few of these symptoms. So it was planned that they meet with a surgeon in Salt Lake City at the beginning of May. Because of the size and placement of the tumor on her brain and because of her age, he recommended that they perform surgery sooner rather than later. He also did not want the tumor to grow any closer to the brain stem. And so, surgery was scheduled for July 11 at 7:30 AM. Mom planned to fly out to SLC on Monday and thankfully made it safely even after quite a few flight delays and sitting on the runway for a while. She took care of Dylan while Joaquin was at the hospital. A few wonderful friends from their church drove the 5 hours just to sit with him. The surgery lasted for a little over 7 hours, with two neurosurgeons making an incision behind her ear in a “C” shape, laying her ear over, and cutting a piece of her skull out to get to the tumor, which was approximately the size of two grapes. You can imagine it was a long day for everyone! After surgery, Amber was in the ICU for around 29 hours, then moved to a regular recovery room, where she is now. She has a lot of pain but she was able to get up and walk a little this morning! Her facial nerves also seem to be working pretty well so that is a relief as well, as the doctors had said that surgery could have affected them. We are not sure yet when they can head home, possibly Friday or Saturday. After that, recovery will probably be around 4 weeks or so. As you can imagine, this has not only been an emotional burden, but a financial one as well. While their medical bills are covered, their expenses for traveling, and lodging are not. They will need to buy a special hearing device for Amber since she lost all hearing in her left ear. They also have baby Dylan and his CF journey to walk through. Not to mention they need to drive 5 hours over to Salt Lake City, Utah for all of Dylan's health care, as well as Amber's, which takes quite a bit of time and fuel money! Considering this, we have decided to open this LFEBridge, so any of you who wish can contribute to this cause will be a big blessing to them, whatever the amount of your donation may be. We as a family want to thank all of you for your prayers, messages, and all the other ways you have shown that you do care. It does not go unnoticed!
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