A festive Halloween soon turned into a nightmare for a family in Arizona.
Blair Dreessen (@blairdreessen) posted a clip on TikTok recounting the story of the day their lives changed forever.
Blair’s husband, Kyle, had gone to work that morning dressed as Jason from the Friday the 13th, mentioned he was struggling with “weird” headaches, head pressure and reading emails.
“At first I wasn’t really sure what to think, as my husband was trying to minimize it all,” the 44-year-old told Newsweek. “He just thought the stress was catching up to him and he was very tired. I had said maybe he should leave work early, but he insisted he was fine and would finish out the day.”
When Kyle returned home, Blair immediately knew something was wrong. “That’s when I got really worried,” she said, explaining that her husband didn’t look like himself.
“I just remember that his eyes looked strange, like he was in a daze,” she continued. “Though I still never imagined it was going to head in the direction it did.”
Blair took his blood pressure and saw it was dangerously high. Kyle wasn’t keen on ruining his favorite holiday—or his impending birthday the following day—but Blair insisted on going to the walk-in clinic.
Once there, Blair received a text from Kyle, saying that the clinic suspected he had a mini stroke and advised going to the emergency room.
As Blair tried to maintain a sense of normality for their 13-year-old son, she was quietly falling apart.
“Inside I was freaking out,” she told Newsweek. “I did a lot of going into my closet to allow myself to cry for a moment and do some deep breathing away from my son to not worry him more.”
Hours later, Kyle called with even graver news—the doctors suspected a mass in his brain. “I was just in so much shock and disbelief with what was happening,” Blair told Newsweek. “He’s a healthy 37-[year-old] man, like, what do they mean they think he has a mass in his brain?”
After a few days of fear and uncertainty, Kyle was eventually diagnosed with Grade 4 Astrocytoma, a highly aggressive form of brain cancer.
“This is a highly aggressive primary brain cancer that has no cure, limited treatment options and is terminal,” she told Newsweek. “Twenty-five percent make it to two years and less than five percent make it to five years. Our hope is that treatment will give him as many quality years as possible and during that time there can be more advancements in brain cancer research.”
Kyle underwent emergency surgery on his 38th birthday, but only 80-85 percent of the tumor could be removed.
The location of the tumor left him with aphasia—a language disorder affecting his ability to read and communicate—along with short-term memory loss.
He has since undergone proton radiation and is now in a chemotherapy regimen. On Mother’s Day, Kyle would have had another critical MRI scan.
“He’s a big strong guy, always on the go, so to have to slow down, take naps or feel like he can’t do even normal daily stuff has been extremely hard on him,” Blair said.
Blair, who has been juggling her son’s needs and her husband’s care, has also created a GoFundMe page to help with mounting medical bills and support for their family.
“It will help with medical expenses, cover additional treatment options, living expenses, any unforeseen challenges that will more than likely arise in a journey like this and just lightening the overall load so our family can focus on healing,” she said.
Read the full article here
