Team Pat's Peeps

"It was a typical Monday in mid November of 2013. We were puttering around the house and my mom was on the phone with her sister Kathleen - they talked every day, discussing Thanksgiving dinner. My aunt noticed that my mom's speech didn’t sound right and asked her if she was all right. That was the first anyone noticed anything. My mom said she was just tired and was seeing her family doctor the next Monday for her check up. The doctor asked my mom to walk across the room. He didn’t like what he had seen and sent her immediately for an MRI. The test indicated she may have had a stroke but wanted her to have another test. The result was that she had a brain tumor and needed to see a brain surgeon. Fortunately, her two younger sisters are nurses and one actually worked in neurosurgery at Jefferson University Hospital. She immediately had Pat see the “Chairman of Neurosurgery “ He had her in for tests and planned surgery the next week after Thanksgiving. By Thanksgiving my mom could not do the cooking because her speech and motor skills were compromised. After the surgery the entire family met with all of the Chairmen’s of Neurosurgery, Radiation and Oncology. There we learned a new word that forever changed our “Family”. That word was GLIOBLASTMA. My mom had Glioblastoma that was Stage IV Cancer. It is the severest and most aggressive kind of brain tumor known to man. Her tumor was inoperable. The treatment would be chemo-therapy and radiation . I asked how does one get this? Bad luck was the answer. They don’t know why. By Christmas she could only give one word answers and could barely walk at all. She kept on deteriorating and had a few hospital stays and by April 2014 Pat passed away with her loving family by her side. We are forever changed. We know how devastating this has been to us and also to the people that are and will go thru this in the future. This is where Custom Ink and a loving group of family and friends helped! We started a team at the Race for Hope, a fundraiser for the National Brain Tumor Society. It was there that we created Team Pat's Peeps in honor of my mom. Our group helped raise over $2,800 to help find a cure for this terrible disease. This will be a long standing tradition for my friends and family as we continue to honor the life of a wonderful woman (and my best friend) who was taken from us far too soon. " - Bridget (Nov 04, 2014)