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Kelly Stafford, the wife of Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford, announced some distressing news on Instagram Wednesday. The former UGA cheerleader revealed that after experiencing vertigo, dizziness, and balance issues, doctors found that she has a brain tumor and will undergo surgery this month to remove the growth.
Kelly, who married Matthew back in 2015 and has three young children with him, posted a photo with her husband directly after hearing the news accompanied with the MRI scan that shows the acoustic neuroma spot, a noncancerous and typically slow-growing tumor that develops on the main nerve leading from one’s inner ear to their brain.
The caption reads:
This is a picture of Matthew & I the day we found out.
I said I wanted this picture of us, so that the day this was all over, we could look back at this photo & remember.
Within the last year, I began to notice things that I thought was just me getting older.. I would show my girls how to do a front roll or twirl in ballet class and immediately feel dizzy & off balance… Things that I had been doing my entire life were now, all of a sudden, difficult.
The beginning of Jan was when I experienced my first spell of vertigo..It kept happening & then it happened while I was holding Hunter. Matthew took me straight to the ER. They checked vitals & bloodwork, all were fine..
Several vertigo spells later, Matthew’s team doctor recommended we go get an MRI of my brain to rule everything major out. A few days later we were hit with the results.
I had a tumor sitting on some of my cranial nerves. The medical term they used was an acoustic neuroma or vestibular schwannoma.. All I heard was brain tumor & that they had to do surgery to take it out.. so that is what we are going to do & we believe we found the best doctor to do it. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t completely terrified of brain surgery. I am. I am terrified of them opening my head, I’m terrified of losing my hearing, I’m terrified of losing facial function, I’m terrified of far worse things that could happen and I’m terrified that I won’t take the time I need to recover because the guilt I might feel of being absent from my kids for too long.. I am telling y’all this to ask for prayers and support.Things to pray for: -calmness in these next 2 weeks as I know anxiety will run high in myself & my whole family leading up to the day of surgery. -that God be in the room with the surgeons & give them all the guidance, steadiness, & confidence they need. -my safety during and after surgery. -please pray for matthew as I know his nerves will be high during this surgery. I couldn’t imagine being out in that waiting room.
Thank u. Thank u for reading this novel. thank u for all your support and most importantly, thank u for your prayers.
As Click on Detroit points out, the Mayo Clinic’s assessment of Stafford’s diagnosis may not be as dire as it sounds. The tumor is normally slow-growing and noncancerous so treatments such as radiation or surgical removal can be very effective options.
Best of luck to the Staffords, and a quick reminder that cancer has and will always suck. Even the noncancerous cancer.