Re-cap of Jimmy's Journey - Part 1

Hello everyone!

Well, here we go again! Before Jim begins his next journey, I felt that it would be a good idea to do a re-cap on our original story for those of you that need refreshing or who missed out the first time around. So, here goes ....

In July of 2002, just a few days after his 41st birthday, Jim suffered his first stroke. My daughter, Jenna, and I happened to be in Las Vegas attending a national dance competition that she was participating in. The plan was for Jim and her brothers, Michael and Ricky, to join us later that week. You can imagine the shock when I received a call from a friend that Jim was in the hospital. The next phone call I received was from Jim telling me that he was fine and that he and the boys were still coming out to Las Vegas. The next phone call was from my sister telling me to get my butt home. I was on the next plane.

When I arrived at the hospital, the doctor explained to me that Jim had an aneurysm in his basilar artery and that the aneurysm contained a blood clot. Because of the location of this aneurysm, which happened to be in the location of his brain stem, it was deemed 'inoperable' due to the risks of major brain damage. Despite being placed on blood thinners, he continued to have quite a few more strokes, and we spent the rest of the summer in and out of the hospital. Eventually, things settled down, and we did our best to move on and enjoy life as best we could.

Late in 2003, through a routine MRI, we found that the aneurysm was enlarging at an alarming rate. The doctors decided that he might need to consider surgery, despite the risks. We were referred to Dr. Spetzler of the Barrow's Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. He is considered the best neurosurgeon in the world in regard to brain aneurysms and tumors and is often referred to as a magician. He came up with a plan to remove an artery from Jim's forhead to create a bypass around the aneurysm and to place partial clips below that would help relieve the pressure on the aneurysm. We packed our bags and headed for Phoenix. After a 10 hour surgery, and weeks of watching, the surgery was deemed a success. We spent three terrifying weeks in Phoenix and many months back at home dealing with his recovery -- some of which was pretty scary and some of which was quite comical. If you would like to read all about it, I believe you can still find it on our old website: http://home.comcast.net/~krisreynolds.

Through the magical power of prayer, we enjoyed more than three years of this miracle. Then, in the spring of 2007, I noticed that Jim was developing a slight limp and showing signs of weakness on his right side. Another MRI showed that the aneurysm had started to increase again for no apparent reason and that he was developing symptoms because of the pressure on his brain stem. We again called on Dr. Spetzler for his help, but he wasn't as anxious to do surgery again as he felt the options were too minimal and risky. He advised us to move on with our life and to wait until the symptoms became too great to ignore.

After about a year and a half of deterioration, the symptoms have become too great to ignore. For those of you who have seen Jim recently, you will have noticed that his limp has become more pronounced and he relies on the use of, I must say, a very dapper cane. More than that, his dizziness has increased and is causing him to experience constant feelings of motion sickness. In other words, he vomits regularly, and this very social creature has become more and more unsociable -- this is a state worse than death for someone like Jim.

Very long story short, we have heard back from Dr. Spetzler that he would like to consider another possible surgery for Jim. Fortunately, they will plan to do a test first to make sure that the surgery will work before attempting. At the time that I am writing this, we are still waiting to hear all the details and to discuss the options. As soon as I have more information, I will be sure to publish another post on this blog. For now, we are asking you for your prayers as we know how much they helped last time we went through this. Thank you all so much for your continued support, and God bless us all!