Bayou Vista man is beating a rare tumor

For Bayou Vista resident Chris DeHart, changing a pull valve switch on his camper usually is no big deal.
The same can be said of fixing a tire on his boat trailer.
But last year, when he tried to do both, he simply couldn’t remember where to begin.
Similar memory lapses occurred when his wife Gail sent him to the store to buy something and he couldn’t remember the details.
The DeHarts figured he needed a medicinal change to his diabetes medicine to stop the foggy memory.
However, what they thought was a simple medicinal fix last September has turned into a nine-month-plus process that has included the discovery of a softball-sized brain tumor and five surgeries to eliminate it and restore his health.
Now, just over nine months later, Chris sat at his dining room table Monday with his wife and they told the story.
In a person’s brain, he explained, the front part is where people draw motivation. The left and right sides then tell you what to do.
“But you got to get motivated to be able to do,” he said.
In his case, the brain tumor was sitting on top of his brain, pushing down.
While he originally went to his family doctor with the possibility that a change in his diabetes medicine would be needed, a CT scan showed he had a brain tumor. An MRI revealed its location and size.
Although the results were alarming, Chris felt fine with no side-effects other than temporary memory loss.
After learning the initial diagnosis, the DeHarts sought out a team that could handle the case.
While other medical facilities were unable to help, they found one of the doctors who would ultimately save DeHart’s. One night while they were out to dinner, a friend told Gail DeHart that her husband should visit Dr. David Baskin, the program director at Houston Methodist Neurological Institute. Gail’s friend had been a patient of his and gave positive reviews.
So the DeHarts reached out to Baskin’s office. After Baskin responded and they sent him the data, Baskin told them to come to Houston for a consultation with him and a team of other doctors.
Meeting
the doctors
When the DeHarts arrived, they met Baskin and Dr. Mas Takashima, Houston Methodist’s chair of the Department of Otolaryngology. Baskin is a neurosurgeon, and Takashima is an ear, nose and throat doctor.
Chris said the doctors were amazed he was not having more side effects than the memory lapses.
What he had was called an atypical benign meningioma. His wife said that they are not usually cancerous.
They are rated on a scale of 1-4 with 4 being the worst and a case of cancer.
The doctors thought that DeHart’s case was a rating of a high 3, Gail said.
If nothing was done, the tumor eventually would kill him.
While the doctors told DeHart to go home and think about whether he wanted to undergo the treatment at Houston Methodist, the DeHarts didn’t even make it out of Houston before DeHart called and told them yes.
The vibe he got with the doctors just felt right.
A third medical professional, plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Klebuc, was involved in the treatment, too.
“At this time, we knew that it was serious, but we actually didn’t know how serious it was because we’re not sitting down talking about how dangerous it is,” Chris said.
What was below the surface was not only a tumor that was on top of his skull but also filled his six sinus cavities. It was in the bones of his eye socket and forehead, too.
The surgeries
Beginning Nov. 9 and continuing through May 1, DeHart underwent five surgeries.
On Nov. 9, his sinuses were cleared all the way to his skull.
On Dec. 10, he endured a much longer surgery performed by Baskin in which medical personnel worked to remove the tumor from his forehead.
After 11 hours of surgery, 95% of the tumor was removed, 15% more than the 80% that was thought would be removed.
More than three months later, on March 23, Takashima and Baskin cleared his sinuses again before what would be the fourth and longest surgery.
An 18-hour
procedure
During DeHart’s fourth surgery on April 1, doctors removed the remaining 5% of his tumor.
However, doing so came with a long process in which the skull plate over his forehead was removed and his eye sockets were broken to get the tumor out.
The doctors then took a piece of the top of his skull, shaved it in half and put part of it back while the other part was used to rebuild his eye sockets.
“They took out as much bone as they possibly could, and what they’re telling me is left is micro particles, which they’re going to radiate,” he said.
Some portions of his nose also had to be rebuilt as they cleaned more of the tumor out.
“At one point, the ENT was working through his nose, the brain surgeon was up on the top and they could see each other through his head,” Gail said.
A piece of muscle from his right leg was placed in his head to block the sinuses from the brain. He said the sinuses must be kept away from the brain, because if not, a person can contract meningitis and die. Through that piece of muscle, doctors enabled blood to flow properly.
The surgery featured more than 50 people in the operating room with Baskin, Takashima and Klebuc each having their own teams. Additionally, interns were present along with a local TV station crew that filmed nine hours in the operating room.
Because of the rarity of the case, capturing it on film for teaching was vital.
Recovery
Back home, Chris has been recovering since the April 1 surgery. Because he doesn’t have his skull plate in yet, he has two bumps on his forehead that are bones and a piece of skin that sinks slightly in his forehead.
He had one set back in his recovery about two months ago when he was taken to the hospital on May 1 after, among other things, his head was swelling in the area where the skin was supposed to be dipping.
He underwent surgery because he had a hole in a patch in his head that was allowing air in but not out. To fix the problem, they took a piece of skin from his left leg to patch the hole.
DeHart has one surgery remaining to put in a new skull plate that will be made using an MRI machine and a 3D imager.
Looking back after reading their story in the Houston Chronicle, watching it on a Houston TV station and hearing it from doctors, the DeHarts are taken aback by what they have endured.
“I never thought about doom and gloom the whole time, but it’s like ‘ooo, Lord, we were pretty close,’” he said.
However, DeHart said that by telling his story, he can encourage others to seek surgery for their ailments, perhaps for the same thing he has experienced.
“If it’s a success, then we all win,” he said. “If it’s not a success, it’s not because we didn’t try.”