HOUR-LONG seizures, vision loss in the right eye, and failure to complete sentences are among the challenges that 54-year-old Valrie Anderson has been battling for the last 20 years.
These problems stem from a condition called pituitary adenoma, which is a growth or tumour on the pituitary gland in the brain.
In an emailed response shared with the Jamaica Observer, Anderson’s doctor at the University Hospital of the West Indies, Peyton Lawrence outlined her diagnosis, which has to be treated at Miami Neuroscience Center, Larkin Community Hospital in Miami, Florida.
“After having carefully reviewed your patient’s medical information, in my opinion, Ms Valrie Anderson is a candidate for gamma knife radiosurgery for the treatment of her pituitary adenoma,” the email stated.
According to her sister, Winnifred Anderson Plummer, Valrie began showing signs of the condition while she attended high school but her health got worse during her 20s.
She said her sister’s seizures would last for two to three hours, though the typical time span is usually seconds or minutes before the brain cells return to normal.
“When the seizures became more frequent was when we discovered, after MRI [magnetic resonance imaging] tests, that she had a tumour on the brain. A surgery was done in 2013 at UHWI but since that time the tumour has regrown; it has caused her to have more violent seizures before the surgery and they last for longer periods. Even the doctors that are seeing her when she has an attack, they too are dumbfounded about the length of time her body takes to settle,” she explained.
Anderson Plummer stressed that the deterioration of her sister’s condition has been painful for her relatives.
“We remember how Valrie was – a go-getter. When she was at the bank she was the best at what she did. She left the bank and went into sales and it was the same thing. She is not the person who would sit down and watch the world go by, she wants to be a part of what is making the world go by — that is just how Valrie was — and to see her now it is just heart-breaking. She can’t even open a can of milk,” her sister stressed.
“Valrie is a praying person and she believes that one day the Lord will take away this from her, and I think that is what helps to sustain her as well. I know there is something special about Valrie why God is preserving her,” she added.
Valrie is scheduled to complete the surgery at a cost of approximately $3 million in August, but her relatives are facing financial difficulties and might not be able to source the funds that soon.
Anyone wishing to help can reach out to Anderson Plummer’s email: view2change@hotmail.com
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