Hi, my name is Kelsey and I am creating a fundraiser for my fabulous sister Katie who is sitting in a monsoon of medical misfortune having been diagnosed with a giant brain tumor that will likely return. I will do my best to sum this up similarly to how Katies wonderful Oncologist, Dr. Jennifer Connelly, did upon our first visit with her - Katie was on a beautiful vacation with family in Key West Florida, suffered a massive grand mal seizure while they were strolling on the beach, was told she had a mass in her brain, ambulanced 2 hours away to Miami, told that night she had brain cancer, moved to a cancer center in Miami, released to travel so she could get care closer to home, referred to Froedtert, underwent brain surgery at the hands of a great neurosurgeon, Dr Wade Mueller, who was confident he got all of what he could see but said it was massive and he had to go into some tricky places which became very apparent when Katie woke and could not process thoughts, movement or life in general the same. I forgot to mention - through all of this Kate has been suffering with a severely fractured shoulder that happened when she fell to the ground during her seizure. She ended up staying at Froedtert for a full week vs. the 3 days we had initially anticipated. It was a very long week of assessments and terror of trying to understand what the next steps were for Kate - and very very apparent life was not going back to anything close to normal anytime soon. The therapy team (physical, occupational, speech) decided that it would be best to release Kate home to the care of family with weekly outpatient therapy. As a family we huddled together to develop a plan to help care for Katie who needed assistance with everyday life at that point - getting in and out of bed, using the restroom, bathing, dressing, LIFE. Ohh yeah, and Kate also has a very energetic 9 year old daughter, Macy... of course we layered her care into the plan as well understanding that Katie could not be the mom that she knows she needs to be right now. Hope you are still with me - lets move to part 2. So getting Katie home and settled we outlined and surveyed what next steps looked like - setting up a therapy schedule which includes 3-5 therapy appointments in the Fox Valley a week, travelling to Menomonee Falls to meet an Oncologist & Radiation team, follow-up appointments at Froedtert for her surgery, appointments with an Ortho Dr for her shoulder surgery, plus understanding how to best help Katie relearn how to manage her day to day necessities and care for her daughter. The hard part of much of this is that neuro neglect causes Kate to get easily confused and overwhelmed with situations or activities so she still needs round the clock help and care to keep things moving in the right direction - not just giving her rides due to having her license restricted for 6 months. In the midst of all of this - the initial ortho surgeon that Kate saw we had thought was in her network only to learn he was not - so the good news out of that is that the new surgeon felt that since Kate was undergoing so much physical therapy that they could see if they can avoid surgery on her shoulder until a later date. Fast forward to now - after meeting with her Oncology & Radiation team we learned that the tumor was quite a bit larger than we all thought - it was over 6 cm at its widest point and given Katies age & type of tumor - they said it is absolutely necessary to attack this at full throttle. They also shared that unfortunately it is not a matter of if it will come back but when... So they are starting her with 6 weeks of chemo (everyday) & radiation (5 days per week) and then a short break... then back to more chemo. She will continue to undergo extensive MRIs to anticipate the return and continuously monitor for treatment to stay ahead of this battle. This has been a long road for Katie and as much as we wish that life could just stop while we fix things up, or wish that things like this were free, we all know they are not. Kates is already getting flooded with bills from Florida (out of network) and even some from all of the extensive therapy sessions given the brain trauma from the surgery and extended stay in the Neuro ICU. Katie has been nothing but humble throughout all of this and I have learned so very much from humility and grace to keep putting one foot in front of the other and lean into her family and friends for help - those of you that know Kate know how very Miss Independent she typically is. Any funds raised will go towards medical bills, medications, and travel for appointments. Any help or encouragement does not go unnoticed and we are so grateful to have a wonderful group of friends and family to help get Kate through this!!! Thank you for taking the time to visit and read this. If you would like to send Kate a card personally, please mail it to: Kate Barry 1651 Brighton Beach Rd Menasha, WI 54952
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