Jody Meisenheimer
On November 30, 2005, Jody Meisenheimer was hospitalized for several weeks down at Froedert Hospital in Milwaukee in the Head Trauma Unit. When Jody first went down there he walked in and the nurse said to him “Where are you going, “Jody replied “I am checking in as a patient” and the nurse said “People do not usually walk into our Head Trauma Unit, they come in on a stretcher.”
After a many hours of patiently waiting, MRI’s, CAT scans, and many other tests that the doctors ran, we were told the devastating news. This is when Jody, and his whole family learned that Jody was diagnosed with a brain tumor. This was the first case of cancer in our family. Jody’s type of brain tumor is very rare and usually occurs only in small children. This rare brain tumor is called Pineal Blastoma. This tumor affects eye sight, hearing, balance, body temperature, brain and coordination. Jody’s tumor is located near the pineal gland and was very large. Also, along with this large tumor in Jody’s brain they found three smaller tumors, and a tumor located in his neck by his spine. They had to do surgery to put a shunt in his head to relieve the pressure on his brain. The prognosis for Jody at that point was three years to live.
Since November 30th 2005, Jody has gone through five weeks of radiation and then chemotherapy. Chemotherapy was every week. On the first week he had three days of treatment followed by two weeks of chemo once a day each week. This process is called a cycle. Jody has undergone ten cycles of chemotherapy.
Jody fought long and hard to make it through those treatments.
When Jody was first diagnosed with Pineal Blastoma he weighed 180 pounds and was 6’4. Following treatments he weighed about 138 pounds.
He lost all of his hair and became very weak. Jody had some success with the radiation and the chemotherapy. He now has only the largest tumor to worry about. The radiation successfully reduced the smaller tumors.
This contribution will help Jody and his family with past medical bills, and the new ones, because Jody has to see doctors for follow up exams and MRI’s every three months.
Even though Jody still suffers from double vision at times and has some hearing loss, the success of radiation and chemotherapy has brought Jody great joy. The original large tumor has shrunk to the size of a pea. His hair has grown back, but instead of being a blonde like it was before he now has black curly hair. Jody is now starting to gain weight, one pound at a time. He is still outgoing and lives every day to the fullest. He is happy to be able to prove the doctors wrong so far.