Mr. Thomas

By: Tyler Petersen

  A scar that starts from the front of his ear stretches to the top of his head is now covered by hair that has grown since then. This is the recovery of Mr. Thomas’s recent brain surgery. This is his journey.

  Mr. Roger Thomas is a special education teacher here at Mooresville High School.  His job is to help the students in the resource room do their everyday work.  Twelve years ago Mr. Thomas was diagnosed with a level 2 tumor. There are 4 levels of this condition 3 and 4 and producing quickly.  His first surgery affected his short-term memory loss and speech.

  This whole process started when Mr. Thomas had a seizure in 2011.  He went to a doctor at St. Francis in Beech Grove and they put him on medicine for it. He still was not feeling well, so one of his friends at church who is a doctor sent him to another doctor for a MRI.

   This MRI showed he had a tumor at this point he was worried about cancer.  After this he was sent to a doctor at IU in August who found out everything. He had surgery in October of 2002.

  In July of 2015 the tumor went from level 2 to level 3. He had surgery on November 7. They took out where it was it went from Level 3 to level 2.  His cancer was being treated with radiation, medicines or injections.  The doctor said no Laser treatment because it would damage more.

 “I told the doctor who cares, use the laser. The doctor did not joke much,” Thomas said.

  Even with all this information being thrown at him, the only thing he could think about was his family, and feels upset.

  “I was frustrated and sad when I found out. But IU did a great job on the first surgery and a great job on the second,” Thomas said.

  When the news hit the school about Thomas being sick a lot of students were upset.

  “ It scared me, I didn’t really know what to say about it,” sophomore Kaitlyn Trosper said.

Another student committed on the situation “ I didn’t know if he was going to be back,” sophomore Robert Hobson said.

  After Mr. Thomas’s last surgery he sat at home and healed. Thomas said the person that helped him the most was God. After a while the house was boring. He sat on the couch talking to his dogs that were ready for him to get back to school also.

“The dogs sat on their side of the couch growling at me,” Thomas said.

  Thomas was ready to get back, He needed something to stimulate the brain and helping kids do their work did exactly that.

“This process shows you who you good friends are,” Thomas said.

  The school and staff have been really helpful, you will have people come up to you and tell you how to treat the process and they don’t know what they are talking about.

 Even through the stressful process of surgery after surgery, Mr. Thomas still has managed to have strength and hope, strength and hope that he has brought back to Mooresville High School to inspire all.