@nednilclan died in a fight with the dastardly brain cancer, but it was too late, the tumor had won, and... she died. Her neighbor wrote this: To disclaim, I am [Petals] and I have been Ned’s Neighbor for over 11 years. I have flown with her to many hospitals and stayed with her a lot during this time. I apologize if my dates are a bit mixed up, because a lot happened! I took the time to highlight words we use a lot on this server and put an explanation of what they are so you won't be lost! I hope this helps! Now just be warned before reading: some of this stuff is pretty heavy duty. This is some scary stuff. Before they figured out what was wrong with Ned, she was diagnosed with a mitochondrial disorder. From my understanding, this prevents her from taking certain medication as well as makes her a bit lactose intolerant (not too extreme, but still makes her pretty sick when eating dairy products). They were all completely content with that diagnosis until in February she had her first seizure, which you can read in detail in her first update on DeviantArt. That same journal also describes her second seizure in a movie theater in March. At the end of March, they located a tumor on the frontal left side of her brain. We call this tumor “Bennigan.” In April, she was accurately and officially diagnosed with a Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) grade 3-4 brain tumor. To explain, a Glioblastoma is the fastest growing brain cancer out there and Multiforme means it can duplicate or create more than one spawns throughout the brain. The “Grade” depends on how disassociated her cancer cells are from her regular cells. If they aren’t too far gone, they are a grade 1 or 2. If they are at a high risk stage, they are at a 3 or 4. Bennigan was described to be “the size of a bar of soap.” She flew out to get it professionally removed at the Mayo Clinic (a Rochester, Minnesota hospital that specializes in brain cancer). They cut open Ned’s head (the cut is called an incision) and were able to remove 95% of it, but that last 5% was too close to an important organ for them to touch. She then spent most of July at a hospital in Tennessee, getting Proton Therapy (which is a really complex, narrowed-focus, radiation therapy). In other words, they hooked her up to a machine for a half an hour a day and they sent radiated beams/waves into her tumor. When they returned, they were worried that her incision hadn’t healed all the way yet, so some kind of skin surgery was completed in order to help it heal faster. It was around this time (early October) she got an MRI back (An MRI is a big machine that Ned lays in for like 30 minutes and is super loud. It takes an accurate X-ray image of her brain). This MRI found a new brain tumor in the back of her brain near a ventricle. If this brain tumor, “Mini Ben,” got too big, it could cut of an important vent for brain liquid to get out. If the liquid backs up, terrible side effects come with. So then she had a shunt placed (a shunt is like a drain. I think of it like a long tube that carries the liquid elsewhere. In this case, it goes to her stomach). I want to say around October 30th, Ned’s parents couldn’t ignore the lack of food Ned was getting due to her limited Keto diet (this diet almost completely cuts off all sugar and carbs) and the amount of vomiting her new medicine was causing. So she got two feeding tubes in to help give her more nutrition in addition to the food she already eats (feeding tubes are pencil-thick tubes that are put directly into her stomach and stick out so that she can pump nutrition into herself). These tubes are held in by a balloon on the inside of her stomach. She has two: a G tube and a J tube. From my understanding, they both can take food, but one goes to the stomach and the other goes to the small intestine. Although they have been super helpful for taking medicine, keeping food down and other reasons, unfortunately, these tubes have been majorly problematic. I think they have fallen out or broken on more than three occasions and one even went too far in. All of that required separate Emergency Room (ER) trips. November 11th, she had four grand mal seizures within the span of four hours (grand mal seizures are the worst kind of seizures. They are when the person violently shakes and makes terrifying movements). She was placed in an emergency room with a breathing tube (practically the size of a can of hair spray) in her mouth. If you couldn't guess by the name, it is a tube strictly designed to help someone breathe. In this instance, the feeding tubes did help by giving her food she couldn’t take on her own. She was there for a few days before she recovered and came back home.
