Stepping up to the plate: Local woman battles brain tumor

By Mollee Francisco 

Robyn Swenson knows she’s got a couple of great kids. At the moment she needed help the most, when no adult was around to lend a hand, Swenson’s 8-year-old twins stepped up to the plate and, with some quick, critical thinking, saved her life.

Swenson has a brain tumor, but she didn’t know it until last December when she suddenly fell ill.

Today, she is receiving aggressive treatment for her tumor, but the change to her life and that of her family’s has taken its toll. A benefit is being held for Swenson on Feb. 17 at Clover Ridge Elementary School.

Seizure

It was just two days before Christmas 2007 and 42-year-old Swenson was at her Clover Ridge home making Sunday brunch for herself and her 8-year-old twins Sydney and Riley, when suddenly Swenson noticed her hand cramping and felt a shooting pain up her arm. Before she knew it, she had grabbed the wall for support and then slumped to the floor.

“I told Sydney to call dad,” she recalled. As her children looked on in horror, Swenson began having a seizure.

Sydney did as she was told and called her father, Lee.

“I said ‘Mommy’s sick,’” she remembered telling her father. She hung up the phone and told her brother she was going to call 9-1-1.

Riley initially discouraged his sister from doing so. The duo had sat through many a lecture from their mom on only calling 9-1-1 during a bona fide emergency.

“I told her, ‘No, it might not be that bad,’” said Riley.

But on second glance at his mother, who still lay on the floor with purple lips and blood and drool dripping from her mouth, Riley changed his mind.

“Yes, call 9-1-1,” he instructed his sister.

Through her tears, Sydney fought to stay calm, telling emergency dispatch her name and address, just as they had learned in school. Meanwhile, her brother grabbed Swenson and held her up to keep her from biting her tongue again or hitting her head as she continued to seize.

Not five minutes had gone by before both their father and emergency crews were on the scene to lend a hand. Sydney and Riley both remember their mother being carted out of the house on a stretcher. She mouthed “I love you” to them and they hugged her.

Mass on the brain

At Ridgeview Medical Center in Waconia, doctors were able to stop the seizure and eventually found a mass on Swenson’s brain.

“At that time, I didn’t know what a mass on the brain meant,” she confessed. It turned out to be a cancerous tumor on her right motor cortex, the part of her brain that controls the motor skills on her left side.

Swenson’s condition is hereditary and rare. “Only 1 in 10,000 families have this,” Swenson noted. Her great-grandmother died from it at nearly the same age Swenson is.

Swenson eventually ended up at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester looking for advice on how to proceed. Her doctors devised a plan to hopefully shrink the tumor using radiation and chemotherapy. Now, she also takes oral chemotherapy every day and will continue to do so for six weeks.

She also makes the trek from Chaska down to Rochester five days a week for radiation.  Early on in Swenson’s treatment, the family made a paper chain containing 30 links, one for each day of her radiation treatment. Each day she completes a treatment, they tear one link off. Last week, Swenson tore off her 15th link. She has passed the half-way point.

Swenson recently received some good news. A new MRI showed that the tumor was shrinking. The family rejoiced.

Benefit

But there is still a long road ahead. Swenson, a self-employed psychologist who formerly worked at the Anna Westin Foundation in Chaska, will unlikely be able to work until the fall. Under Minnesota, because she had a seizure, she cannot drive for six months. So she now relies on the kindness of others for her daily treks to Rochester.

“It’s been overwhelming to experience the generosity of friends, family and colleagues,” she said. “That’s how we’re getting through this.”

Teachers, and sometimes even the principal, drive the kids home from school when need arises. Friends have set up a schedule for driving and dinners, with people volunteering to do one or the other throughout the duration of her treatment. Friends have also organized the Feb. 17 benefit.

“I’ve seen some really beautiful things happen,” said Swenson.

The benefit will feature a barbeque dinner and music from the Limns as well as a baseball clinic featuring several members of the Minnesota Gophers baseball team (Swenson’s husband is an assistant coach for the Gophers).

In the meantime, the Swenson’s will continue to take life one day at a time, relying on their faith in God, “the Great Physician” and prayers to help them through.

When: 3-7 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 17

Where: Clover Ridge Elementary School, 114000 Hundertmark Road

Tickets: $15-$30

About: Features baseball clinic, barbeque dinner, music by the Limns and a silent auction

Info: www.robynswenson.com