This site has been created to help unite friends, family and loved ones in support of Andrew with our prayers, thoughts and actions as he faces the challenges of his illness.

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Donation information for Andrew can be found at the end of the full “My Story” section.

Andrew is 8 years old, and the sweetest, most loving child you could ever imagine. We’d all noticed that Andrew was a bit clumsy, and even joked about it with him, but thought nothing major of it. …There are lots of kids that are not overly coordinated at his age. Recently though, his uncoordinated movements began to look a bit different. Kids at school were even teasing him because of the way he walked. The catalyst to get him checked was a homework session with his mom, Brittany. She noticed that he could not write legibly and was having a hard time reading, even though he had always been an advanced reader. The next day, September 26th,  she stopped by to talk to his teacher and discovered that she had noticed a significant deterioration of his handwriting and that he couldn’t even hold scissors. Brittany, immediately took him to the Doctor where an MRI was scheduled for the following morning.  The result of this MRI were given shortly after. They discovered a large tumor covering 70% of his cerebellum…

After finding the tumor, it was discovered that there was extra fluid on his brain, increasing the pressure to a dangerous level, so the first priority was to relieve that pressure. They drilled a small hole in his skull to allow the fluid to drain, and his motor skills immediately already improved. The next step was surgery to remove the tumor and determine if it was cancerous.

We knew it was going to be a long day, and Andrew’s Grandpa talked to him about it that morning, asking him how he felt. They talked about how long the whole thing was going to be and Andrew pointed out that it was going to be a really long day for everyone else, but it wouldn’t be too bad for him because “time goes really fast when you’re asleep”. He never once appeared to be afraid or sad and never once complained. Such an amazing kid!

He went in to Pre-Op at about 10:30am and was not out of surgery until about 9:20pm. It took another 30 minutes or so to move him to recovery and then another hour before the surgeon came out to give Brittany and Dave (Andrew’s Father) the full update on the outcome of the surgery.

He was immediately able to speak, count to 4, grip with both hands and pass rudimentary motor tests. The surgeon said we’d get a better idea for his motor function and vision once he’s had a chance for the anesthesia to wear off, but overall Andrew did great.

Unfortunately, he also reported that the tumor was malignant – medulloblastoma – so the journey for Andrew was far from over. The next day he was singing songs, making jokes and smiling his sweet little smile whenever he was awake. He has many fans among the hospital staff, and they all love his sweet little disposition. He just never says no to anything they ask him to do!

They did a CT Scan and found a 1/4 inch blood clot just above the area where the tumor was removed. They are hoping that his body takes care of it on it’s own, but are watching it closely. There is such a huge range of implications for a clot like that, in that location, that it’s scary to even think about, so we’re dwelling on the fact that they do believe his body will be able to dispose of the clot on it’s own. Hopefully we won’t have to deal with it any further.

They also discovered that his top cervical vertebrae were out of whack so they gave him some muscle relaxers to help relax the area so his body could let the bones move back the way they were supposed to be.

Today, 10/3, they will be sedating him again to take a full body MRI so they can see a detailed view of his brain, brain stem and spinal chord. They’ll be studying it closely to see if they can find any residual parts of the tumor or evidence that the tumor spread to his spinal column. They will also be doing a spinal tap and testing his bone marrow just to be sure.

The surgeon feels fairly confident, based on the size of the tumor and what he saw when removing it, that it had not spread, which is good news. Apparently, if it spreads to the spinal chord the tumor presents more like grains of sugar sprinkled on the nerve tissue rather than a solid tumor so surgical removal is not possible. It requires a much more intense and aggressive chemotherapy and radiation regimen to treat and is much more likely to resist the treatment.

If the tumor has not spread, he will still begin both chemo and radiation treatments very soon, but the outlook is much brighter.

We’ll keep updating as we know more. Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers!