Page 43 - The Exceptional Harley Fetterman

THE EXCEPTIONAL HARLEY FETTERMAN

blindness). He gave Kevin and Beth 80% odds that surgery would not
affect Harley's current eyesight levels. The advantage to removing
part of the tumor would be to avoid any further need for surgery for
up to a decade. When Harley was told about yet another surgery
which could possibly take away his limited sight, he got scared and
cried. It just didn't seem fair. The surgery was to be scheduled for
summer, 2009.
The cyst issues accelerated during the summer. His surgery kept
getting postponed which began to really frustrate Beth and Kevin. In
August, Harley's cyst got large enough to clog ventricles that pass
spinal fluid between his brain to his spine. This resulted in emergency
surgery to insert a shunt to drain the cyst and ventricles by Harley's
previous neurosurgeon, Dr. Wilson, who happened to be on call at the
time. This was only a temporary fix to the cyst problem.

Finally, October 23 , 2009, Harley had the surgery that the whole
rd
family was dreading. That fateful day ended up being as catastrophic
as they had feared. Surgery took much longer than expected. The cyst
and most of the tumor was removed—but his optic nerve to his right
eye was completely severed. The next nine days were horrific. In fact,
cerebral fluid leaked from his nose at one point. He also had bad
reactions to Dilaudid, a pain medication given every four hours.

Figure 10: Happy for visitors but ready to go home!

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