Help Isaac Recover from brain surgery

Hello friends and family,

We are here, in need of some help. A few of you may know that Isaac began to lose hearing in his right ear toward the end of 2020. We went to several specialists and it took almost 2 years and several referrals to finally get here.

In April of 2022, Isaac was diagnosed with a Vestibular Schwannoma, which is a benign tumor growing on the balance nerve in his brain. The tumor was pressing on his auditory nerve and causing hearing loss. We are glad we caught the tumor when we did as it was growing, and would have started to have other impacts on Isaacs's balance and facial nerves.

Isaac underwent brain surgery on January 23rd to remove the tumor and was released from the University of Michigan hospital on Friday the 27th. We are so grateful to Dr. Thompson, Dr. Basura, Dr. Venezuela, and the entire neurosurgical team at UofM, they have been fantastic through this entire process, easing my fears step by step during the 12-hour surgery.

The procedure went well and they were able to remove the entire tumor and spare Isaacs's facial nerve, which was the primary goal. Unfortunately, the surgery caused Isaac to lose the rest of the hearing in his right ear and he will require some time including months of therapy to help him learn to balance and drive again and resume day-to-day living to a certain level of normalcy.

Isaac is a hard worker, but he must take his recovery as slow and easy as possible. This is going to be hard for him, as he is very dedicated to his job and does not want his clients to feel let down. Isaac and I are self-employed and the cost of short-term disability insurance for a 2-person business is cost prohibitive, so he will have little to no income for several months. Any money donated will help us to allow Isaac time to recover, as well as travel back and forth between here and Ann Arbor for therapy over the next several months.

We are exploring options to restore some function to Isaacs's right-side hearing, including a bone-based hearing implant. This is an option that has to be explored once all of the healing has taken place and would require a second surgery. We have been told that our insurance doesn't cover the implant, the cost is around $20,000 and so any money that we have extra will go toward saving for that implant.

We truly appreciate anything you can give to help Isaac heal during this time. We need and rely on him SO much!! This whole process has been extremely

stressful and emotional for not only Isaac but also our children (especially these two, shown in their doctor outfits ready to take care of their dad) and our family. Thank you to everyone who has provided and continues to provide other kinds of support to us, including my mom keeping our daughters while Isaac was in the hospital. Thank you so much for your donation! We truly appreciate it!

Love you all!

Love, Liz, Isaac, Elena, Emi & Family