The Faces of Brain Tumors
Daniel Gregory
Written by Karen Gregory email
Mixed Oligoastrocytoma
Diagnosed December 28, 2003
Ashland, VA
Hello, my name is Karen Gregory, I live in Ashland, Virginia. My husband Daniel was diagnosed with a mixed oligoastrocytoma on December 28, 2003. Our story truly began 4 months earlier in August 2003, when we celebrated the most wonderful day of our lives, Our Wedding Day! Little did we know, our lives were about to be changed forever. We were just 2 young kids, at only 23 & 25 years old, completely in love & out to conquer the world.
Then it began.
It was 3 weeks before Christmas & I started noticing Daniel was acting out of character. Daniel was becoming irritable, stressed, & anxious when normally he is the most loving, patient, laid back guy. Then on December 27th we were at my parents’ house for one of the many family gatherings we have at Christmas time. Daniel had not been feeling good in the days prior, so he laid down to take a nap. Shortly after he fell asleep, Daniel started to seize. We were blessed to be with family, they were able to get him the help he needed. I didn’t have any idea what was happening & I was so terribly scared. The paramedics came & Daniel regained consciousness 5-10 minutes after the seizure began. He didn’t know where he was or who he was, the only thing he could tell the paramedics was that George Bush was the President of the United States, we all got a chuckle out of that. Daniel went to the ER, they did a CT & loaded him with meds. The doctor told us that they found a mass on the right side of his brain & they would have to do an MRI the next day to pinpoint what it was. That was the longest night of my life, I sat next to his bed in the ER just Praying! The next day they did an MRI & later told Daniel that he had a brain tumor, we were so overwhelmed, & didn’t really even know what it all meant. He was discharged & we took him home. He was in surgery 10 days later, only after 2 more seizures & 4 more days in the hospital. The doctors were able to remove 70% of his BT in surgery. Because of our strong faith & Daniel’s positive attitude we maintained that we could defeat this tumor, we stood in Faith that God had healed him already. When Daniel came out of surgery he was paralyzed on the left side of his face & had weakness on the left side of his body. I love Daniel so much. It was hard to see him in so much pain & having trouble being able to talk, something we all take for granted & something Daniel prided himself on before diagnosis. Over the next few days Daniel went through lots of rehab. I think we both matured so much in those few days. I was now the person that was helping my husband eat, walk, & learn to talk & speak words all over again. It was an extremely emotional time for all of us who love Daniel. Thanks to Daniel being the warrior that he is & to all our family & friends, & most importantly, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Daniel is almost back to 100% today. We still deal daily with short term memory issues & many emotional battles, but we are blessed for how far we have come. The biggest battle of all would come after Daniel was released from the hospital. At the request of the doctors, we tried to go to some specialists to help in the battle to fight the part of the tumor that was left behind. This is now a 13 month long battle (& is on-going) with the insurance company. Our insurance company disagrees with the doctors’ plan of treatment. So we continue to fight this very day.
I write this today with hope & prayers that our story will raise awareness for others out there like us. Every day lives are changed by this terrible disease. Now, at 24 & 26 we like to think we have a lifetime a head of us, we want 5 kids, a house with a lot of land & more time with our family & friends. We have faith that our dreams will come true, but many brain tumor patients don’t even get the chance to have dreams at all. God Bless.