On Sunday, March 8, 2009, while playing Flag Football with co-workers, Marc was hit in the face by another players shoulder, by accident of course, which caused what the Neurosurgeon says was a Simple-Partial Seizure, only in his upper body – face, shoulder and arm, something Marc has never had before and scariest sight I have seen. With this, Marc was taken by ambulance to the ER to get checked out at Memorial Hermann Hospital Southeast. A Cat-Scan was done and a mass of some sort was found on the right side of his brain. Marc was then admitted into the hospital for observation and MRI.
Quickly family & friends worked their magic and Marc had an appointment with a Neurosurgeon, Dr. Tandon, at Memorial Hermann Downtown within 4 days after his accident and was scheduled for a much more advanced MRI that could show us so many more details, chemical levels, the true size of the mass, etc., it was amazing!
Dr. Tandon did confirm what we didn’t want; Marc did in fact have a Brain Tumor that would have to be removed. The tumor had to be removed because of the size and location – right side of the brain controls the left side of your body – where the tumor is located is an area that controls function. Marc was in surgery within 2 weeks of the accident.
Marc at the age of 27 was going to begin a new fight, a fight with Brain Cancer. It was confirmed that he had an Astrocytoma and he would be observed every 3 months moving to 6 month and then yearly.
Fast forward to 2012, Marc and I were married on May 5, 2012. A week and a half before our wedding and when Marc was to start being seen only yearly, he was given the news that the tumor had grown too much in the last 3 years that Dr. Tandon was comfortable with and he’d have to have another surgery. Surgery was scheduled for May 30, 2012 - another very hard surgery both physically & spiritually, but Marc bounced back much more quickly from the first.
It was discovered that Marc's tumor is an Oligodendroglioma and mix of some Astrocytoma. The tumor had to be sent off for chromosomal testing where the doctors are looking for a deletion on the 1p and 19q chromosome. If there is this deletion, Marc is in AWESOME shape, and then this tumor responds VERY well with both chemo therapy & radiation. This means that the cells will be killed or completely slowed down… bottom line, Marc will then have decades left of a fulfilled and happy life versus years, BUT even within the last 4 years since his first surgery, there have been so much advancement in understanding the brain and tumors, new treatments are being discovered every day. After waiting about 6 weeks Marc and I found out his tumor did in fact have the deletions on the 1p and 19q chromosome, so Marc has now entered the next phase - chemo therapy – start date September 2012 cycle 1 of 12, he's now finished cycle 7 of 12, finish date of September 2013, a very slow, rough road for him, but his doing his best. The biggest hurdle is staying really close the 4 week cycles, but sometimes his platelets just don’t cooperate, but the past few cycles the platelets have been within a safe number, YEAH!! Marc is one of the strongest people I know and this will not take him down!