by Michelle Arroyo, A mother fight along his ill son, that is the heartbreaking yet motivating story of Michelle Arroyo whose son Grayson Smiley was diagnosed with a brain tumor, he is the son of Slade Smiley.
43-year-old Slade Smiley is currently dating Gretchen Rossi, he once dated Jo De La Rosa, he is also the father of his brave soldier 12-year-old Grayson Smiley.
Slade’s ex-girlfriend and Grayson’s mommy is Michelle Arroyo, this amazing woman spectacular not just she is stunning, but she is a strong, kind and wonderful mom.
She gave birth to her son Grayson Alexander Arroyo-Smiley on May 16, 2000, by the time he was 4 in Kindergarten Michelle began to notice things were not going well for Grayson at home and school.
“In 2004 Grayson started showing signs of developmental delays in preschool and displaying some avoidance behaviors. Although he was never a good sleeper it became an ongoing habit of being up in the night. When it came time for Kindergarten in August of 2005 we enrolled him in a Private School with a very structured environment hoping that it would keep him more focused in school. At his Kindergarten physical we found out that Grayson’s vision had deteriorated significantly since his last exam and he needed eye glasses. In October of his Kindergarten year it became clear that the school would not be able to accommodate his needs, so we enrolled him in a school for “Special Needs” with hopes that it would be a better fit for him.
By May of 2006, he began having a harder time at school and just focusing in general. He was having more bad nights and what I thought were nightmares, talking in his sleep about real things. He had some vomiting which the pediatrician thought was the stomach flu, but then one morning after being up most of the night became clearly disoriented. I took him to the ER in hopes of getting more information because I knew that something was wrong.
The Doctor on call decided to do a quick CT scan, even though there was no sign of head trauma and that is when we saw the mass on the scan. We spent a week in the hospital running tests; two MRI’s, two spinal taps, and more blood work than we could imagine. We knew it was a brain tumor, but the presentation was rare in that it was a diffuse infiltrative mass surrounding the optic chiasm, hypothalamus, pituitary stalk, around the brain stem; throughout the cerebellum and throughout the spine. In June, 2006, we had an endoscopic biopsy and confirmed that it was a Diffuse Fibrillary Astrocytoma”.
You can read the rest of Grayson and Michelle’s journey at their website, you can also follow her updates on Facebook here and followed them on Twitter here.
Michelle and Grayson not just need your prayers, but also support financially speaking, perhaps you remember last July Michelle spoke to the National Enquirer about the $160.000 debt in child support Slade owned them, Michelle and Grayson have been living with her sister for a couple of years, she couldn’t work because she has to stay with Grayson 24/7, not sure if Slade paid them already, by March it was reported Michelle said Slade was paying $775.00 a month but the payments were not consistent.
Even so you all know medical bills are high and when it comes to neurology and cancer treatment it gets worse (you can donate here). Grayson underwent surgery at Sloan Kettering in New York a couple of days ago, Michelle posted updates about his condition.
Our prayers are with You Michelle and Grayson!!!
