Hi Everyone! First let me thank you for stopping by. It’s likely that you got here because you are someone who loves Ruthann, a friend of someone who loves her, or maybe even someone who just wants to pray for her and the situation at hand.
I am starting this blog for several reasons. I think the most important task of this blog will be a great avenue of communication for those of you either out of state or just wanting to catch up on things. We have already found over the past few days that it’s an exhausting, although important task, to keep everyone “in the loop”. We hope to use this blog as that vehicle.
Ruthann (who I will now refer to as Mimi, because Ruthann just feels WAY too formal to me J) has many people who I know care about her. I know without a doubt that she has touched many lives with her kindness, thoughtfulness, love, friendship and many other ways.
I will attempt to bring you up to speed. A lot has transpired over the past few days. Mimi has suffered with headaches for a long period of time… years. On Saturday, Angie (who is Mimi’s youngest step-daughter) came down to visit and to attend Danielle’s (Mimi’s granddaughter) open house. Mimi mentioned that she had a headache over about 6 days and her vision had become “odd”. She said that she couldn’t see out of the left side of her peripheral vision.
On Sunday morning after a lot of coaxing and talking with everyone Mimi agreed to go to the ER to be checked out. We were all concerned about the possibility of a stoke. You likely already know that she had an artificial valve put in her heart a few months ago. She recently discontinued the use of Coumadin (a blood thinner) which raised the concern for the possibility of a stroke. In the ER on Sunday night she had an CT scan of her head which they reported to Angie and Mimi that it was highly likely she had a stroke and at that point admitted her to the hospital. Monday morning they performed an MRI and MRA of her head. The news came to us as there was a difference in what they saw between the MRI and the CT scan. At that point they called neurosurgery and had Dr. Kotecha (Mimi’s neurosurgeon now) come and talk with her about the findings of the MRI. He has told Mimi that the MRI is not what he had hoped to see. The diagnosis that he has told her he feels what she has is called a Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) Stage 4. This is a very aggressive brain tumor/cancer.
To make a long story short after further testing, we now know that this tumor not a metastatic. This means that the tumor/cancer did not start/orginate from somewhere else in her body. The fear was that possibly she had additional cancer that had spread to her brain. As you can imagine, this was a huge relief to know that we were dealing with just this tumor right now.
Tina, Angie, Chuck (her husband/aka Papa Nuna), and myself were all there this morning when Dr. Kotecha came back to talk further about what to expect and get solid information from the source (person calling the shots ;-)
Mimi will have surgery to “debulk” the tumor next Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at Allegience Health. Dr. Kotecha said he will remove as much of the tumor as he can SAFELY. Mimi will wait until next week for surgery because she has been on Asprin which is also a blood thinner and it is imparative that her blood not be thin which would increase the risk of bleeding during/after the surgery.
Today (Wednesday) as we speak Mimi is being released from the hospital. I think this is a HUGE relief for her. JJ (her son and grandson J) is turning 8 on Friday and she really wants to see that he has a fabulous birthday. Being home will enable her to do that! I know she (and he) are really looking forward to his big day!
She will have Great Lakes Home Health Care come to the house as a visiting nurse, I think this will provide a great sense of relief for Mimi, someone checking her vitals, communicating with her doctor to stay on top of her pain, and just provide an overall check for her well-being until the surgery date (and likely after).
It’s been a rough few days as you can imagine. On Mimi’s behalf, I know that she appreciates all of your prayers, thoughts, and concerns. Mimi has a very strong faith in God and knows that this is all in God’s hands right now. You probably won’t be surprised to know that Mimi was reassuring all of us. We know that there will be days that are tougher than others.
If you are looking for specific things to pray for, I think a great place to start is; pray for wisdom for the doctors involved to make the best possible medical decisions regarding Mimi, strength, stamina, and also peace within her.
Thank you so much for everything. We ALL appreciate your support and love.
Written by Kari on behalf the whole family of Ruthann Tilden
We will try to update this everyday as things change/happen!
Also, we have set up an email address if you want to send anything to Mimi: strengthformimi@yahoo.com I don't know how often she will be able to check her regular email so if you want us to get something to her we will be sure to get it to her promptly!
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