Dear Johnny,

My name is Amanda, my husband is Jed and we have four beautiful kids. Chase 13,

Jaxon 11, and twin girls Paige and Piper 8. Jed is a sheet metal worker with Local 2 and

I’m a loan processor. We both have worked hard to get where we are in life, but I never

thought I’d have to write this letter.

About a month ago Jed started to have some weird symptoms of numbness in his left

arm and hand, and headaches. He thought it was a pinched nerve. A couple of weeks

later he had a migraine that increased in severity and it became debilitating. He went to

the emergency room on Saturday 11/16. After a cat scan, they discovered a baseball

size tumor in the right side of his brain. He was immediately transferred to the University

of Kansas Medical Center. They did a tumor resection on Monday 11/18, just two days

later. The tumor was sent off so they could find out what we were dealing with. Brain

tumors are graded 1-4. A grade 1 tumor is a slow growing tumor that is usually treated

with good outcomes. The higher the grade the more aggressive the cancer and the

worse the prognosis is.

On Monday of this week we had the follow up appointment and pathology results for the

tumor. The tumor is unfortunately a grade 4 glioblastoma. The most aggressive type of

primary brain tumor. Statistically it’s not good. Long term survival is not in our favor.

He starts 6 weeks of radiation right after Christmas, followed by chemotherapy. He’ll

also have to have physical and occupational therapy to regain and work on fine motor

skills.

Jed has been off work for just over a month now and on one income we’re starting to fall

behind. It’s all been just so much in a short amount of time. Jed knows he’s in the fight

of his life and we just want to be here for him. We’ll see as treatment progresses where

this takes us, but I just want to take some pressure off of him and the family while we

fight this battle.

Thank you for reading my letter and keep us in your thoughts.

Amanda

Who helped: Bobby, Mike, Jeremy, Candy, Chris & Pipefitters 533, Cosentino’s

How you helped: Mortgage payment, electric bill, Christmas for the kids, groceries