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HELPING A FAMILY IN OUR COMMUNITY Bob Brazile had started to experience severe back pain mid December. He thought that he had slipped a disc or pulled something in his back. Time passed and the pain would come and go. Then it seemed to move to his shoulder and that pain too would come and go. A few months had passed and he would battle the pain. One day, Bob was getting out of his truck and twisted his knee. The next day the opposite knee was swollen to the size of a grapefruit. He went to the doctor to see if he could have it drained. When he was examined, the doctor sent him directly to the hospital. They discovered that he had blood clots in his knee as well as a severe blood infection throughout his body. They estimated he had the infection for approximately a year but it had stayed dormant until now. There were so many strains of infection throughout his body, that not a single antibiotic would cure them all. He had to have cultures taken daily to help doctors decide which antibiotic to give him to fight the different strains of infection. The infection that was in his knees and shoulders could not be treated with antibiotics. Bob underwent a number of surgeries to surgically remove the infection that would not respond to treatment. After 3 weeks in the hospital Bob was released to go home with a port to receive antibiotics. Tammy drove Bob to the hospital for daily treatments of antibiotics because he wasn’t able to drive himself. After finishing his antibiotic treatments, Bob started experiencing the same back pain as before so he went to the doctor. He was immediately sent to Parker Adventist to be checked. In the blood work up they did in combination with the MRI, they discovered that a cyst had developed on his spinal cord and had also spread down his spine. Bob had been given the wrong/ineffective antibiotics for 8 weeks so the blood infection was worse than when they had started the initial treatment. They had to do yet another surgery to remove the cyst from his spinal cord as well as remove 2 discs. His doctors told him that if the infection had penetrated the spinal cord he could have been paralyzed or it could have been fatal. They were unable to put pins between the spaces where the discs were removed because of the infection. He is now out of the hospital and has a pick line that runs to the major artery in his heart that releases antibiotics every 3 hours for a full hour at a time. He is still fighting the infection but the doctors are very hopeful that the medication he is now on will kill what is left in his body. Days before Bob’s initial hospital stay, he had accepted a new position as an advancement with a new company. Days after getting out of the hospital he was notified that he had been terminated. Bob has worked in the Disaster Restoration field for a number of years and also assisted in the clean up after Katrina. Bob will not be released to work for at least another 6 weeks. Tammy Brazile is a teacher at Cherry Creek High School. She is well respected and loved by her students and their families. They have 3 wonderful sons. Michael is a Freshman at Grandview High School, a wrestler and an avid skate boarder. Vance is a First grader at Trails West Elementary and wrestles as well as plays baseball. JT is in Pre-K at Trails West and is his brothers’ biggest fan! With medical bills mounting, we want Bob to focus on getting better and try to lift some of the financial burden off the family. We will be hosting a Pasta Dinner Fund Raiser for the Brazile Family. If you are unable to attend but would like to make a donation to the family, the information is located on the bottom of this letter. Pasta Dinner
Where: Grandview High School Cafeteria
Donation Information: BOB BRAZILE MEDICAL FUND c/o US
Bank Attn: Vincent
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