This week we kicked off the FŌM2022 preseason by #playingitforward for Jack!

Matt and his wife Meredith had their 3-year-old son Jack go through major brain surgery. Jack was scheduled to have a 6-8 hour procedure to disconnect the left hemisphere of his brain. Jack was born with a rare brain disease, Hemimegaloencephaly or HME. Patients with HME are born with one side of their brain enlarged and are prone to medication-resistant seizures. Because of the unique anatomy of Jack's brain, his 6-8 surgery turned into 22 hours. Revealing that by starting with the top laparoscopic approach the doctors were given a unique view of the puzzle they needed to unpiece to completely separate the hemispheres of his brain. The surgeons proceeded to perform a complete hemispherectomy to remove the left hemisphere of his brain.

During surgery, they saw a lot of seizures present on the left side and because the left side was so entangled and almost engulfing the right (healthy side) the seizure activity looked like it was traveling to the right. They ended up completely removing the left hemisphere. Through all of this, it has been so encouraging to hear that when he came out of the surgery he was actually able to speak and still have some decent motor function; something they did not expect. They are about to get back from Detroit to spend the next 8 weeks or so in Grand Rapids to go through all of the therapies for Jack.

"The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still”

We are thankful for the opportunity to Fulfilling Our Mission to serve others and #playitforward. Visit www.fomcore.com/fom-2022 to learn more about FŌM2022.