Author Archive: Kim Cudd

Biography

Robert Craig Cudd, Jr., 37, of Midland, died peacefully on Friday, February 6, 2009 at MD Anderson in Houston, TX. He was surrounded by his wife, mother & sister. Visitation with the family will be from 6:00P.M. to 8:00P.M. Wednesday, February 11th, at Ellis Funeral Home. A memorial service will be held 1:00 P.M. Thursday, February 12th at Stonegate Fellowship with Jay Mayo officiating. Pallbearers will be Lance Wood, Bruce Ingram, John Ironside, Michael Hughes, Robbie Plummer, Joseph Payne, Jeff Oneal, and Mark Terry. Honorary pallbearers are Lance Ingram, Greg Galvan, Paul Edwards, Ed Delgado, Ken Livingston, Gary Johnson, Jesse Arenivas, Roman Duran, Mundy Hernandez, Joel Sharp, Roger Cudd, George Kiker, Chris Jauz, Jeff Ryan, Gabe Salazar and Randy Watson. Interment will follow at Resthaven Memorial Park. Robert was born January 16, 1972 in Farmington, NM. to Robert and Linda Cudd. He graduated from Midland High School and attended West Texas State in Snyder and Midland College. Robert was employed at Wood Group, ESP as a regional sales manager for the past 13 years. He worked his way from shop hand to sales manager with an amazing group of people that stayed by his side throughout this journey. Robert married Kimberly Hughes on October 4, 1997 in Las Vegas, NV with numerous friends and family in attendance. On March 23, 2001 his “little sunshine” Sydney Danielle was born. Robert’s life was never the same after that day. She had her daddy wrapped around her finger from the moment she entered this world. Robert was an avid golfer and enjoyed day games at Ranchland Hills and Odessa Country Club.

He also played with the Knights of Columbus and developed lifelong golfing buddies. When it came to sports, Robert couldn’t get enough of the Oklahoma Sooners. During football season, activities evolved around game time. The Red River Shoot Out was his highlight of the entire season and made several trips to Dallas for that. Although the last shoot out was not his most favorite, the trip was more special because it was Sydney’s first college game to attend. Robert was also involved in the Indian Princess organization with Sydney and couldn’t wait for the camping trips and Valentine’s Day dances. He was so excited to buy his suit for that 1st dance! This was their special daddy-daughter time together. He helped coach Sydney’s soccer team, The Mighty Tigers, for the last 4 years and cheered her on during softball and basketball games. She was his little athlete. One of Robert’s favorite pastimes during the summer was the lake trips with family and friends. He made sure that the campsite was set up to perfection and that when he was ready for bed everyone knew it! In Robert’s words “SHUT THE DOOR!” His latest hobby was NASCAR and was able to enjoy several races at Texas Motor Speedway with his friends. Robert was preceded in death by his grandparents, Luis & Leonard Upham and J.D. & Francis Cudd. He is survived by his wife Kim; his daughter, Sydney; parents, Robert and Linda Cudd; sister, Debbie Cudd; and his faithful companions, Paris and Scooby. Also honoring his memory and missing him dearly are numerous uncles, aunts, cousins and friends. The family would like to express their deep gratitude to Dr’s. Ganesh Rao & Agop Bedekian and their nursing staff at MD Anderson; Dr’s. David Watkins & James Corwin and their nurses at Allison Cancer Center; Dr. Kris Howard; Dr. Robert Vogel; Dr. Stephen Rea, and all other health care providers that helped during this difficult time. Memorials can be made to Livestrong.com, MD Anderson Cancer Research, or the charity of one’s choice. Arrangements are under the direction of Ellis Funeral Home. To place on-line condolences please visit www.mem.com.

Robert’s viewing will be at Ellis Funeral Home on Wed at 6:00 pm.

The funeral services will be held at Stonegate Church on Thursday at 1:00 pm followed by a short graveside service at Resthaven Memorial Park in Midland.

Love,
Kim

It is with great regret I must inform you of Robert’s passing.  We were in to Houston earlier in the week for tests but Robert experienced complications with one of the inoperable tumors.  One of the tumors deep within the brain began to hemorrhage, building up fluid and there was little we could do.  We fought it all day and night, we tried everything.  Robert got rid of this awful disease @ 3:15pm Feb 6th.   He is himself again, somewhere else right now.  Light as a feather, moving around without wires and the side effects of the meds. He is NED (no evidence of disease).

Sydney is w/ my parents and is unaware of the sudden developments.  I am not really sure how I am going to approach the situation yet so please, if you see her, act like everything is normal.

I love you all and will be communicating with you shortly.  If you will allow me a little time to gather my thoughts, I would appreciate it.

We will all miss him.

Love,
Kim

PS:  Nothing is in stone yet but we are tentatively looking at Thursday for the services.  I will keep you updated.

Hi everyone!!!!  Sorry for the span between updates but it has been a roller coaster ride for us.  I will start off with the fun stuff first.  We had two fun-filled weekends at Lake Nasworthy in San Angelo just enjoying jet skiing, boating, and time with our friends.  Everything went well except for someone sucking up a nylon rope in the jet ski and I won’t  say any names to protect, shall I say, a very responsible fun-loving person.

Next, was a short visit in Houston with a follow-up appt. with the infection control doctors.  Good news there with a release from their care.  We took Sydney with us this time and treated her to the zoo, the Aquarium, and swimming at the hotel.  Although it wasn’t much of a vacation, she loved every minute of it.

Robert then decided to take a trip to Vegas before starting chemo and off we went.  We check into our hotel and couldn’t believe our room when we opened the door– someone had the hotel upgrade our room to a suite.  It was great and we love them for it!!!  So we spent four days gambling, shopping, good food and cocktails, more gambling, and just enjoying life.  We saw Penn and Teller one night and that responsible, fun-loving person dropped her camera into  her margarita..  That called for more cocktails!!!!  I want to thank Lance, Lori, Jeff, Claudia, Jared, and Mike for a great weekend.  That meant the world to us for joining us on such short notice.

Back to Houston for CAT scans, MRI’s, and consults with the doctors next.  Dr. Bedikian, the oncologist, gave us three options of the type of chemo to go through.  We chose the moderate level because the side effects aren’t as severe as the aggressive and could possibly achieve the same results.  However, we could change to the aggressive pending its effectiveness.  Also, the moderate chemo can be done here in Midland with no hospital stay.  So, we are waiting for the call to get it started.  The appt. with Dr. Rao ,the neurosurgeon, could have been better.  He stated that everything looks good considering, but there are three new, very small brain tumors that have developed.  Dr. Rao still has confidence in starting with the chemo as planned and that is all we needed to hear. So, we are asking everyone to continue with prayers and support as we get ready to start our next journey.

We love you all and want to thank everyone for taking care of us.  It is greatly appreciated and stay tuned!!!

Robert is out of surgery in stable condition.  He is in ICU.  The surgery was originally planned for about an hour in length but turned into four.  This one was actually more complicated than the one we did originally to remove the two tumors.  They did get the abscess pocket which was the goal.  They said it turned out to be a very rare infection (I am so glad we decided to go to Houston). The infection started out as a sinus infection that moved to the brain.   They did say he would be in the hospital for more than a couple of days due to this type of infection.  If the infection does come back, we will have to do it all again.  He is still experiencing small seizures but they said that was to be expected. We will be doing another MRI this afternoon.  He did say they plan on another cycle of chemo but they did not say when we would start.

We know you are all praying for us and we ask you to continue and ramp it up……

Well we were just informed that Dr. Rao is on the way and that Robert will be undergoing surgery here in about 30 min to remove the abscess that is causing the problem swelling.  They are going to go in through the old incision.  We will update when we can.

Well it has been a roller coaster since the day after the golf tournament. For those of you who have seen Robert and noticed some swelling around the incision, that was drained out unwillingly at home on Friday. Robert was laying down and when he got up noticed a LARGE amount of fluid on the pillow. We decided to go to the emergency room and have it checked out. They ended up sending us home and telling us it was not a big deal at all.

On Tuesday Robert started experiencing major problems with his right leg below the knee. It was going numb and he had little control over it. After discussion we decided to load up and head to the hospital to get it checked out. I am sorry to report, Robert has not been home since the time of me writing this and I honestly do not know how long it will be until he gets too. While at the hospital, Robert then began to have focal seizures (also called partial seizures which affect only a small part of the brain). These seizures are evidentially affecting the nerves in the brain that control the right arm and hand. He had a very rough night and the seizures remained a constant annoyance to him all day long. He can feel them coming on and he deals with it for about 30-60 seconds, then he comes right back to the Robert we all know. He is the fighter and always shows us the strong side.

The Dr’s here in Midland said they think they have found a blood clot or an abscess on the brain that is causing all the fluid to build up. They are now leaning towards the abscess based on all the fluid and drainage. We basically looked around at all the facts or lack of and said we need to let MD Anderson handle this. We had our Dr here call their Dr there and get on the same page. MD Anderson said they wanted us down there ASAP. A social worker (Denise McKinley) got involved and handled all the transportation logistics for getting air-lifted to Houston. So here we are in Houston and you know what we know. We will meet with the DR later this morning.  Please keep praying and we love you.

Finally in a room as of midnight.  Very long day yesterday.  Dr. Rao came by this morning and let us know that Robert may be released on Saturday.  I am the one doing the update today because he won’t sit down.  In fact, he just served me a nice Dr. Pepper.  We are about to cruise the hospital and go outside via wheelchair for him.  Now he is cleaning the room.  One of the tumors removed must have been suppressing the “cleaning” gene for quite a while.

The next round of treatment will be 10 days of whole brain radiation in around two weeks.  Chemo soon after to zap the lung and abdomen tumors.  This will be done in Midland and we will come back to Houston in a month to rescan everything.  Dr. Rao states that he successfully removed the two large tumors that were golfball size (I believe it is a sign to give it up now)  I am just glad that he doesn’t play tennis.  Big thanks to everyone that is on this journey with us. I am so grateful to all and we are very fortunate to have friends and family like we do.  Stay tuned for the next episode.  Hugs!!!

Both tumors were removed as planned. They told me he was moving around and talking and that it is very possible we will be released from the hospital on Sunday!!!! They are calling me back to go see him right now!!!

Robert’s nurse came out and informed us the first tumor has been removed and all went as planned.  One of the things to be very cautious of is bleeding during the removal.  Robert did not experience this at all.  Very positve so far but there is still work to do.  They are just starting the removal of the second tumor.