Medical Emergency-Brain Surgery

Hi, I’m Leeann, a 35-year-old female who was recently diagnosed with a very large tumor on the left frontal and parietal lobes in the meninges of my brain. The tumor encases the sagittal sinus and is resting on the body of the corpus callosum and has created its own copycat bundle of collateral veins. I am fundraising to help cover the cost of past, current, and future medical related expenses, travel to appointments, and to be able to keep up with household bills/expenses in the meantime. I am no longer able to work very much at this time and will subsequently miss days of work due to the upcoming appointments in preparation for surgery. My partner Todd, will also be missing days of work when he transports me to these appointments. I am a recent graduate of NMCC (2021-associates of arts) and UMFK (2023-bachelors of science), where I earned a 3.89 GPA at both schools, was consistently on the dean's list, received special honors, recognition, and awards, and graduated as the top student in my program at both schools. I also still currently work part time for 5 hours, 2 days/week as a tutor at NMCC. Before this diagnosis, I was pursuing a career with the Aroostook Mental Health Center to become a substance abuse and mental health counselor for the Residencial Treatment Facility in our area; however, these plans were put on hold in light of my recent diagnosis and need for emergency brain surgery. I would like to resolve these medical issues and get back on track with becoming a licensed alcohol and drug counselor, starting my career, and potentially going back to school to earn a master’s degree. I believe this tumor is a direct result of the Covid vaccine, which I never wanted and immediately stopped getting shots of after I was no longer mandated to have it anymore by the school and would not have to worry about facing any consequences such as not being able to set foot on campus anymore if I didn’t have it. If the vaccine wasn't the cause, I still believe that it may have significantly contributed to what happened. This all started last February when the saliva glands under either side of my jawline became swollen to the size of small eggs and created a few nodules along the midline of my throat/thyroid. It also created a vein that ran from the right gland all the way up to behind my right ear. While not painful, it was still very concerning and shortly after, I started waking up with top of the foot/calf cramps and was afraid to stretch my legs in the morning because of it. By May, I started waking up up to 3 times a night and had foot spasms lasting up to 3 minutes each time. This progressed into conscious seizures that went up the entire right side of my body. These were involuntarily muscle contractions—spasms that would travel from my toes/foot to my calf/knee, then hip, and finally would end with my neck jerking to the right. This includes the involuntary contraction of different muscle groups in rapid succession, and all you can do is flail around during this time and wait for it to be over while your body becomes physically exhausted from the workout. Shortly thereafter, I not only experienced this several times a night, but occasionally during the daytime as well. The spasms and conscious seizures resulted in a condition called foot drop that alters your gait and ability to walk, so by June, I was tripping over my own toes, dragging my right leg behind me, lost the ability to run away from predators, experiencing muscle weakness and numbness in my leg and the outer two toes, had pain in the ligament down the outside of my leg, and I couldn’t go anywhere without shoes on because I needed to avoid stepping on my own dead toes—sustained pieces of useless meat that try to fold under themselves all the time. Constantly stretching to try to prevent or avoid spasms and seizures from coming on quickly became my new reality. In the case of conscious seizures, I can often feel what's called an "Aura," which is like a warning or a rush of fear and anxiety that washes over you before the seizure starts. I can no longer voluntarily turn my ankle to the left or right anymore, it sometimes kicks out when I walk or rolls to the side causing me to fall over, and the ligament frequently gives out at the knee, which sometimes causes my leg to become very bouncy if I put any weight on it. By July, I could tell that the poison had entered into my brain, and I started to get shooting headache-like pains throughout my head multiple times a day. I also experienced many abnormal sensations throughout this whole time in several different places of my body, such as a burning sensation of nerves, and a permanently bruised spot that developed on my lower back/spine. I acquired intense episodes of vertigo in July also, that has persisted along with the swollen saliva glands and subsequent symptoms of foot drop. Episodes of vertigo cause me to get dizzy and almost blackout if I scooch down and stand back up too fast or if I turn around or to the side too abruptly, which doesn’t have to be very abruptly at all. More recently, I started losing my vision several times a day, with it going blurry or bright white, feeling like the pupils are dilated. The tumor is sitting on my vision center and in a place where it can cause physical and cognitive impairment, seizures, or memory loss. I’m very concerned about possibly going completely blind before I have the surgery, which is scheduled for February 20th, four days after my 36 birthday. All donations will be greatly appreciated and will specifically be used for the reasons why they were requested. I have remained positive and optimistic throughout this whole experience, which I never could have imagined would happen to me in a million years. I recently started going to church and I believe that God has already started to do a lot of healing within me and with the help of my body. The doctor said that the copycat collateral vein growth in my brain is the only thing that has prevented me from suffering a stroke thus far. It has helped to maintain adequate blood supply to the blood brain barrier and I believe despite what’s going on, that it is doing an excellent job of maintaining homeostasis over everything it can. I say this because I believe the vein growth is also responsible for significantly lowering the frequency or amount of spasms and seizures that I have experienced over time for the last few months. More recently I have been able to go up to about a week and a half or so without experiencing a single spasm or seizure, which is especially incredible to me considering that I had both spasms and seizures up to several times a day or week in the first several months. I believe the many prayers I’ve received from the wonderful people at church have gone a long way in helping me to heal and that God will safely see me through to the other side of this storm. The doctor will perform surgery for 5 (1/2) hours on Feb. 20th, I’ll be under anesthesia, and he will remove a piece of skull and attempt to remove as much of the mass as possible. Because the large vein we all have running along the midline of our head/brain is occluded or encompassed by the mass, he may have to leave part of it in there if he cannot differentiate between the two of them or safely separate them completely during surgery. I will then need radiation to remove the rest of the mass in that case, but either way I have a chance of being 100% cured, and to have all other impairments I’ve been suffering with completely alleviated over time as well. I am looking forward to resolving these medical issues, getting my life back on track, and to starting a career in the field of mental health and substance abuse counseling; therefore, donations will also be going a long way in helping me to achieve these goals as well. Thank you and God bless you!