A medical, legal, and
informational resource
for persons dealing with
traumatic brain injury.

STORIES OF AMAZING RECOVERIES

Submitted By: Daniel Ziolkowski Jr.
Telephone: 989-893-8756

Hi my name is Dan Jr., I have an extraordinary story to tell. My mother Mary Lou Ziolkowski was diagnosed with Lung cancer in May of 2007. She beat that with chemotherapy and radiation and finished that in October of 2007. She had a MRI in September of 07 and found no brain cancer, but the doctors told us it was a very aggressive cancer in May of 07. So October, November,and December, went by and no scans of the brain were done in those months and I wonder why that wasn't done, if it was such an aggressive cancer.

On January 11, 2008 she called me on my cell phone and said Junior the doctor called me today and said that I have 2 large brain tumors and I don't have long to live. Then on Saturday night at about midnight my brother Dave took her to the hospital for elevated sugar level of 397. They then took a brain scan and found numerous tumors. Then the emergency room physician told them that mom has hours, days, weeks, or maybe even months to live. I thought that the cancer doctor should have been the one to tell her that, but I am glad that at least we had found out about it when we did. The next day on Sunday when I found out I rushed right up to the hospital. I visited with her for the rest of the day and at about 4 p.m. she called Jim her elder from church and had him come up to chat, the three of us sat in the room and mom said to Jim, "Would you do my service's for me?" and Jim said "absolutely Mary Lou." She did not shed one tear before or after, we then continued to visit with her in her room. My brother David, my sister Debbie, Dave's fiancee Laura, Debbie's fiancee Rick, and I all stayed up at the hospital all night.!

We slept on the floor, we slept in chairs and went back and forth checking on her. Then we spent all day Monday with her and then the doctor came in and told mom that they would like to do a burrhole in the tumor for drainage and relief of pressure on the brain. Mom was all for it, she asked dad what he thought and he was for it as well. They said it was a possibility to give mom some comfort. So we spent the night up there again on Monday the 14th of January and she was having her brain surgery at noon. Before surgery she hugged and kissed her husband of 45 years Daniel Sr. her 3 kids, Dan Jr. 44, Debbie 43, and David 39, Laura and Rick, and her 17 year old granddaughter Rachel that she has adopted 4 years ago. She went into surgery and came out abouut 20 minutes later because the surgeon said it was worse than they thought so they stopped. She had a high blood pressure so they wouldn't let her out of ICU until it was lower than the 179/100 that it was. At around 3 p.m. the nurse rang the phone in the waiting room and said she was going up to the 6th floor. We proceeded up there and she was not awake yet, a doctor talked to my dad, my brother, and I and said she has a serious brain disease and that it did not look good for mom. He then said it was not good to try and wake her up, that she needs to rest. So we let her sleep, this is Tuesday evening my mom's sister Aunt Judy from California flew in and we stayed up there again, periodically checking in on her. Wednesday came and the neurosurgeon came in at around 12 noon and took the whole family and Laura's sister Nikki and her brother John who were very close to mom in this little hallway of offices and showed us on the computer in slices the actual tumors. It was unreal how many there were, she then told us that it probably will only be a day or 2 and we all broke down. She then offered hospice to us to a place called "Brians House" they came and got her about 5 p.m. and we proceeded to follow her over there.

She started to wake up in the ambulance on the way over there, my dad and Rachel rode in the ambulance and carried on a conversation about where we were going, my dad asked her if she knew where it was we were going and she replied that she knew what the Brian's House was. She then started to tell her grandaughter about lincoln logs that she played with when she was a young girl. What is weird is she said to Laura and I on the saturday before that she wanted to go to Brians House. We got there and had our own private room, we brought in Jeff Gordon pieces that she loved, we put up pictures of the grandkids. She still wasn't awake yet all the way still kinda groggy in and out of it. She did talk about some people she hadn't seen in 20 years, and short term memory loss. So we stayed there all night, we went and got sleeping material from home let the grandkids visit for a while and took them home and came back. She wouldn't sleep all night and Aunt Judy stayed in the room all night holding her hand and along with her grandaughter Rachel comforting her while we tried to catch a couple hours of sleep.

At 5:45 a.m. Laura and I were in the lounge sleeping on some couches out there when we both woke up and looked at each other and said we have to keep the kids home today. So Laura went to get the kids, Dave and Laura's 2 kids Cassie 9, Krista 7, and my 8 year old daughter Mikayla, and Corey 9 also. Rachel and Corey are Debbies 2 kids, my mom adopted them 4 years ago. They got back at 8 a.m. and then called my son Aaron's wife Dez and she brought my granddaughter Nevaeh who was my moms pride and joy. I also called Nikki to come up and John as well. We all spent the day with mom telling jokes, playing memory games, telling stories and she was wide awake and knew who everyone was. We had so much fun telling her we love her and that we will make sure everything is taken care of. She had us rolling on the ground laughing so hard our bellies hurt, my sister Debbie was actually rolling on the ground laughing and crying at the same time. Then my brother passed gas and mom heard it and waved her hand in front of her nose and said "David Allen get some spray." It was so hilarious we all busted out laughing so hard. Then around 6 p.m. she took a turn for the worse, labor breathing, deep and short breaths and this went on for about 4 hours as Aunt Judy rubbed her chest and coached her to breathe. Then my Aunt Barb came from down south about 9 p.m., my cousin Theresa and her brother Arnie showed up also. At around 10:10 p.m. our nurse Jessica asked us in the lounge if there were any relatives not here and I said cousin Eddie. She then suggested that we call him on the phone and let him talk to her, so we did that and I put my phone up to her left ear and he said a few things to her and I hung the phone up and at 10:40 p.m. she passed away with her family by her side.