{"id":26041,"date":"2019-08-23T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T14:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=26041"},"modified":"2026-04-02T15:07:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T21:07:55","slug":"brain-tumor-marathon-three-surgeons-30-hours-to-save-young-dad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/brain-tumor-marathon-three-surgeons-30-hours-to-save-young-dad\/","title":{"rendered":"Brain tumor marathon: Three surgeons and 30 hours to save young dad"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"A
Chaise Webber with his wife and son. The young parents also have a baby daughter now. Chaise had a brain tumor that required a 30-hour brain tumor surgery. Photo courtesy of Chaise Webber.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chaise Webber and his wife Maria Ramirez had just bought their first house. They needed the space: their 3-year-old son Aiden now had a 3-month-old sister, Isabella. These were exciting, if exhausting, times for a young family putting down roots in Colorado Springs. Then three seconds on a bench press machine threatened to change everything.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Webber, 27, who worked out five days a week, blacked out for those three seconds. Between that and the double vision and inexplicable fatigue after workdays as a corrections officer at the Spring Creek Youth Detention Center, it seemed that something deeper was going on than the sinus infection his primary care doctor had diagnosed. It didn\u2019t take UCHealth neurosurgeon <\/span><\/span>Dr. Thomas Ridder<\/span><\/a> of the <\/span><\/span>UCHealth Brain and Spine Clinic \u2013 Colorado Springs<\/span><\/a> much longer than three seconds with Webber\u2019s MRI images to see what the problem really was: a rare brain tumor called an <\/span><\/span>acoustic neuroma<\/span><\/a> (a.k.a. a vestibular schwannoma).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"brain
Chaise Webber had a new baby daughter, Isabella, when he learned he had a brain tumor. Photo courtesy of Chaise Webber.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Such tumors aren\u2019t cancerous. They grow slowly \u2013 a couple of millimeters a year. But Webber\u2019s had been doing so for years and was now about an inch-and-a-half (4 cm) across. When acoustic neuromas get that big, they become dangerous. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Usually too, Ridder says, acoustic neuromas happen in patients much older than Webber.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have an old soul, though \u2013 that\u2019s probably why,\u201d Webber joked.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But this was no laughing matter.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Complete shock\u2019<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

Webber\u2019s tumor pressed into the brainstem, which regulates the most basic bodily functions: breathing, swallowing, sleeping, moving. As the tumor continued to grow, it could leave him wheelchair-bound or worse. Webber himself, seemingly calm to his core, was nonplussed. There would be brain tumor surgery and he would be fine. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The news was tougher on his wife.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was in complete shock, to be honest,\u201d Ramirez said. \u201cWe had just had our baby girl. We had just purchased our first home.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Based on the MRI scans, Ridder expected the brain tumor surgery at UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central<\/a> to last about eight hours. By about 9 a.m. on Monday, April 22, Webber was anesthetized and lying on his right side so Ridder could access and remove the tumor though a roughly four-inch, arching incision over and behind his patient\u2019s left ear. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ridder peered into Webber\u2019s skull through a bifocal microscope; he worked to peel and carve out the tumor with surgical instruments including an ultrasonic aspirator (which liquefies and then sucks out tissue), a cauterizer, and microscissors. By midafternoon, Ridder recognized that this tumor was going to take much longer than a standard workday to remove. It had grown into the brainstem as well as into the inner ear canal. UCHealth neurosurgeon <\/span><\/span>M. Sean McKisic<\/span><\/a> was soon in the operating room to join in what would become a marathon relay of a surgery.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Pass the baton<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

Roughly every two hours, Ridder and McKisic passed the notional baton. Both had done extended surgeries before. This one, though, combined meticulous, painstaking surgical work \u2013 Ridder described it as \u201cremoving intricate spiderwebs off a very delicate structure\u201d \u2013 with the physical challenge of looking through a microscope with arms extended, which was tough on the shoulders.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

They had to be precise in their spiderweb removal. Inadvertent damage to the brainstem during this sort of brain tumor surgery can do to patients what the tumor would do over time: put them wheelchairs, render them unable to swallow (and thus needing a feeding tube), and, a particular risk in Webber\u2019s case, do damage to the facial nerve, leaving half the face expressionless. The last of these, using electrical stimulation, Ridder could test during the surgery by electrically stimulating the nerve and observing whether facial muscles reacted \u2013 which in Webber\u2019s case the muscles continued to do.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Things went smoothly if slowly until about 17 hours into the brain tumor surgery, when a ventilator the anesthesiologist assumed would have been done with its job hours earlier stopped due to condensation in the line. A switch to a portable version bridged to a replacement, but all that took about an hour.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ridder drank water (too much caffeine, he says, can affect his hands\u2019 steadiness) and stayed focused during McKisic\u2019s shifts, not even catnapping. You learn to deal with sleep deprivation during training as a neurosurgeon, he explained. Plus Webber and his family provided ample motivation to keep focus. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ridder has two children just a little bit older than Webber\u2019s. He has seen such surgeries \u201cgo the other way,\u201d as he put it, where the brain stem takes a hit and the patient is never the same again. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking about his kids the whole time,\u201d Ridder said.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Looking good<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

McKisic and Ridder kept going as the sun climbed into Tuesday. The 24-hour mark came and went. When it came time to remove a stretch of tumor that had grown into Webber\u2019s left inner-ear canal, Ridder called in ear, nose and throat specialist <\/span><\/span>Dr. Cameron Shaw<\/span>, who used a tiny drill to demarcate the canal\u2019s bone from the tumor crowding it. At 2:30 p.m. \u2013 30 hours after Ridder made the first incision \u2013 he and McKisic were finally done. What does it feel like to wrap up a workday that lasts the better part of a standard workweek? Ridder put it this way:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLike a lot of things in life, there are a lot of variables that we can\u2019t control,\u201d he said. \u201cThe way I look at it is, we\u2019re lucky to be able to do what we do and help people, so I do what I can to do my best.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"brain
Dr. Ridder visits his patient after the surgery. Photo courtesy of Jim Webber.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nine days later, Webber was home with his wife and kids. Aiden was careful not to wrestle with Dad as he otherwise would have loved to. Webber was soon helping out around the house and was back in the gym two months after brain tumor surgery. By early August, his hair masked the scar from surgery. Clothing covered scars that had healed over bedsores on his right flank, the result of the extended surgery during which he had to remain firmly in place. As Webber had been told would be the case, the drilling in his left ear canal cost him his hearing in that ear. The only obvious remnant of the brain tumor surgery was facial paralysis on the left side, which Ridder was surprised about \u2013 and, despite the high odds of it happening given the tumor\u2019s size \u2013 disappointed with. Webber says his face is getting a bit better every day. If the paralysis doesn\u2019t resolve within a year, a surgical procedure may be able to correct it, Ridder says.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One challenge Webber now faces is that working as a corrections officer is too risky, given the occasional physical nature of the work and the chance of taking a blow to the head. Webber is hoping to land a desk job at Spring Creek. Aiden, though, has been given the green light to wrestle with his dad, which the boy exploits.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Webber\u2019s three-month MRI looked good, Ridder says: the surgeons managed to remove all but about 5% of the tumor, and if it starts to grow, they\u2019ll be able to beat it back with targeted, noninvasive approaches such as CyberKnife, a type of <\/span><\/span>stereotactic radiosurgery<\/span><\/a>. He received follow-up care from the\u00a0UCHealth Brain and Spine Tumor Multidisciplinary Clinic – Memorial Hospital Central<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"brain
Chaise Webber, left, and Dr. Thomas Ridder three months after the marathon brain tumor surgery. Photo by Todd Neff for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019ll need surgery again,\u201d Ridder said.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Webber\u2019s father Jim, who was at UCHealth Memorial Hospital during the long brain tumor surgery, called Ridder\u2019s, McKisic\u2019s and the rest of the Memorial team\u2019s effort \u201cincredible work that saved Chaise\u2019s life.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Maria Ramirez said her husband is his old self again, and she\u2019s grateful to have him that way.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Ridder was amazing,\u201d she said. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chaise Webber and his wife Maria Ramirez had just bought their first house. They needed the space: their 3-year-old son Aiden now had a 3-month-old sister, Isabella. These were exciting, if exhausting, times for a young family putting down roots in Colorado Springs. Then three seconds on a bench press machine threatened to change everything. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":26113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[402,4758,9138,1112,184,2786],"class_list":["post-26041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-brain-surgery","tag-brain-tumor-treatment","tag-ear-nose-and-throat-care","tag-ear-nose-throat-care-otolaryngology","tag-neurology","tag-uchealth-memorial-hospital-central"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBrain tumor surgery marathon to save young dad - 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He covered science and the environment for the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colorado, and has taught narrative nonfiction at the University of Colorado, where he was a Ted Scripps Fellowship recipient in Environmental Journalism. 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