Ashley's Brain Surgery

My Niece Ashley McLay found out about a month ago that she has a brain tumor that needs to be removed. She is a wife and loving mother to six children. The tumor is an epidermoid that is 3inches by 2 inches and runs along the inside of her brainstem and spinal cord, and it is to big for the surgeon to remove all of it so she will be doing radiation or a 2nd surgery on the other side afterwards to get the rest of it which will put her out of work for quite some time.  Many of you know this awesome family, and have been asking how you can help.  First and foremost, the family humbly asks for everyone to keep praying for ashley, her family, and for the medical teams. We are asking that you help donate anything you can to help with medical bills and to help out the family while Ashley is out of work.  Thank you for your support it is much appreciated. Here is Ashley's story from her facebook page. 12 weeks postpartum - I'm still having the daily headaches that I had all my pregnancy. I tell my OB, Dr. Dohm-Palmer. She prescribes me Imitrex. She said if I have to take it daily or it doesn't help to call her and she will send me to neurology. I tried it for a week with no relief. I give her a call and she puts in a referral for me to see a neurologist. May 10th - Neurology calls to schedule an appointment. May 21st- I had an appointment with a neurologist for daily headaches/migraines, memory loss, and extreme pressure in my head when I would bend over and then get extremely dizzy. My neurologist said "it's just daily headaches and some people get them for an unknown reason. What's most concerning to you?" I told her the memory loss and the pressure in my head. She sId "ok! Let's order an MRI to make sure there is no other cause." May 27th- it's been 1 week since I saw neurology and today is my MRI. I am greeted by a lovely tech who preps me and get me in the machine. She tells me she will wall me through each set of imaging. After it's all done a different tech come and gets me out of the machine. She told me my neurologist will call me with my results in a few days. I leave, though thinking it odd that the tech who started the scan was not the tech who finished it. May 28th - Today I'm in mpls at training for work. Around 10:15am I get a phone call. I didnt answer and on my break I listened to the voicemail. "Hi Ashley, it's Dr. Niemi, please call me back when you have time." Working as a nurse I thought it odd that the doctor was calling me directly instead of her nurse but hey maybe this is what she does. So I call her back and get her nurse. She pulls up my information and asks me to hold while she reads the message. Ok, I thought. She put me on what felt like a 2 to 3 minute hold to come back and say "oh it looks like Dr. Niemi wanted to know a good time for her to reach you?" I said she can call anytime and I'll answer. At this point I know what this means. They found something on the MRI. I knew my life was about to change. So Dr. Niemi calls back and I answered right away. I go sit in the lobby of where I'm training. She says " I normally dont do this over the phone, but I wanted you to know as soon as possible. You have a very large benign brain tumor that is parallel with your brain stem and spinal cord." I instantly break down in tears. She asks if there is a time that day or the next that my husband and I are able to come in and she can go over the scans with us. I told her I would make it work and we can come tomorrow. May 29th - after a while lot of running to mpls to lakeville and back we finally are at her office. She stayed 45 minutes after her clinic closed to see us. We go over the scans and she says that she is going to refer me to a neurosurgeon as this needs to be removed. She tells us it is running parallel with my brainstem and spinal cord, about 3 inches long. Its wrapping aound my right optic nerve, and touches both my intracranial ear canals (2 inches wide). I named her "big nasty". June 6th - I still have not heard from the neurosurgeon that she referred me to. So I take it into my own hands and contact THE BEST neurosurgeon in MN. They reply to my appointment request within hours. And start working to get my MRI results. June 10th - I get the call that Dr. Nussbaum wants to setup an appointment with me. June 13th- Sam and I head out to see Dr. Nussbaum he gives us great news. He will be able to remove most of it with only a 5% chance of leaving the hospital with a deficit (hearing loss in 1 ear, loss of muscle function in my right eye, and/or temporary loss of facial muscle movement) these seem small to me in the grand picture of all of this. He tells us I will be in the hospital for a week and will have to take it easy once I come home. I ask him what we are looking at for the size of a scar, and man its HUGE!! The only down side is that I will have to have radiation to destroy what he is unable to remove. We wrap up with Dr. Nussbaum feeling great. June 14th - I call Dr. Nussbaums office to setup a surgery date. His nurse practitioner tells me that he wants me to have a CAT scan to get more views of other parts of my brain and to meet with the Neuro ENT that will be performing the surgery with him for a hearing test. She told me once we get these 2 things done she will call me to setup a surgery day. June 19th - CAT scan. This went good and was quick. I'm not waiting on results for this because it wasnt for diagnosis purposes. June 20th - we tell the kids. This was hard to do because the twins lost their father on February, so we didnt know how they would react. We reassured them that mom is going to be ok and that we have the best doctor. Owen tried to stay strong, but we could see the tears in his eyes. June 22nd - still waiting to hear from the ENT for my hearing test. Through all of this I have stayed strong and have been looking at the positives. Trying to laugh it off, so that it doesn't consume me. It has been a whirlwind 3 weeks. Impatiently waiting for the phone calls and appointments. I really just want it out so I can have my life back. Brain tumors are no joke. Some days I feel great, others I have a headache that lasts for days, and some days are debilitating. I'm posting this because we believe in the power of prayer! I can definitely say that holding tight to my faith right now. We will keep everyone updated on how I'm doing and the date of surgery as well as recovery. Please pray for me, Sam, the kids, my surgeon and surgery team. I will update when surgery is and recovery. If you made it this far, thank you for reading this. I know its long but should answer any questions. I am soo thankful for my OB and Neurologist who kept digging into my symptoms to see why I have having these symptoms. The are alot of doctors out there would have just brushed me off. As it grows it bigger it could seriously put my life in jeopardy. Its time to get this sucker out!!!