We Haven’t Told You Something, But Now We Will

Every family keeps secrets. There are some things we just don't want to tell social media, or the general public. We look to keep things to ourselves and put on a happy face. But sometimes, we need to open up and tell the truth, and that is what I am going to do today.

We have been dealing with the autoimmune disease, sarcoidosis, for the last three years. Daddy, otherwise known as Chad, has been strong and dealing with this and has been handling it as well as he can. We have been helping him as much as we could.

Not too long ago the doctors noticed a few things on a scan of his lungs. We had to go and get a biopsy done, and found that these nodules were pre-cancerous. To prevent any further issues, the doctors put him on some pretty nasty medicines. We dealt with this, one day at a time and with faith that we would make it through with God.

We thought these were doing something for him, but had noticed a few small things that didn't make sense. While these medicines were supposed to be making him feel better, he wasn't feeling as better as he wanted. And then the tremors started.

Tremors, that simple shaking of the hand that makes some things hard to do, but you can still do them. That pain that doesn't seem to go away no matter what. Well on Monday, Chad had a routine checkup with his rheumatologist. But it turned out to be anything but routine.

Once the tremors were mentioned, and noticed, Chad was sent over to the ER without question. After a day full of scans and waiting, he was told that there was a severe abnormality in his spinal cord. He was immediately admitted to the hospital at the University of Minnesota. Not the local hospital just down the road, but the big University about 90 minutes away from us.

Now began the race to find out what was wrong. We listened to many doctors talk, him more than me, as I have been sharing my time between him and home with the kids. They had many different ideas. We heard about many different things this could be. But we finally found out this was most likely a neurological issue versus a rheumatory problem.

The most we know at this point in time is that they have found a tumor at the base of his skull in the spinal cord. Where this came from, we don't know, what it is, we don't know. We are dealing with a lot of unknowns. But we do know that the location and the size of this tumor is causing a huge risk if we wanted to have it removed. What kind of risk? A 92% chance of paralysis or spinal stroke if something went wrong. Is this type of risk worth it? We still don't know.

We have more meetings today, more scans and more results that will require us to make a decision after we see them. We need prayers. I know a lot of you can help us with that. We need prayers for strength, for healing. We need you to help us and prayer. Can you do that for us?

As with most homeschooling families, daddy is the main income source. And while I love writing this blog, I don't get paid an income for it. I do this to share our journey with you. So now we have a new problem. Daddy isn't working. We don't know when daddy will work again. My cousin has set up a fundraising page to help us with the bills that are bound to come in. To help with the gas and parking fees that are happening every day. To help pay for the groceries that will need to be bought. If you can, and if you feel compelled to, could you help us out? This is not something that we would ask if we didn't need to, but we need to.

Thank you all for your support in following this blog and for praying for us! We really appreciate each and every one of you!