Featured Family Story

This is the story of the Zammit Family of Deltona: mom Shawna, dad Rick, and sons Nathan and Logan in their own words:

The morning of February 29, 2008, was one of the worst days that we have ever had to come to grips with. As parents, you raise your children to do and to be the best they can be, but when your 16-year-old son has been diagnosed with a brain tumor called Anaplastic Oligoastrcytoma, this will set your life back many of thousands of steps.

The only sign he had was headaches. We did as any parent would do and took him to his pediatrician, and we were told that he could be a migraine suffer.  We had blood work done, and even took him to the eye doctor, and he had 20/20 vision.  Blood work came back fine. An MRI was scheduled. 

We did not make it to the appointment.  Nathan woke us up about 1:00 in the morning screaming in pain.  We took him to the ER, and they ran a CT scan and found a mass the size of an orange. His status was critical at this point, and the Arnold Palmer Air Care team was on their way to get him.  We went with lights and sirens screaming, down I-4 doing about 85 mph.  Our ambulance driver told me that we were going straight to ICU. 

Our Neurosurgeon Dr. Pattisapu, told us that Nathan was going to surgery. 

Dr. “P” showed up with his team and spoke to us about what they were going to do. They were going to try to remove some of the tumor. Dr. “P” told us that our charming 16-year-old son could possibly come out of surgery with a V-tube down his throat, and might not be able to speak to us for about a week. That was more than we could bear.   His surgery lasted more than 4 hours. When he came out of surgery, we expected the worse.  When Dr. “P” talked with us after surgery, much to his amazement, Nate was alert, talking to people, and begging for something to drink.

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