Beloved local teacher to undergo brain surgery to remove tumor

IDAHO FALLS — Local teacher Amanda Byrd lives an adventurous life. It’s a huge part of who she is. If things were normal, she’d be traveling the world, taking her students on at least two humanitarian trips per year and donating her time and talents to service projects across the globe.

In her 12 years of teaching, Byrd has led 15 humanitarian trips in Mexico, South America, Central America, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. They’ve built a playground, cleaned up after a hurricane, served in a leper colony, built houses, dug wells, cleaned rainforests, and volunteered with the Days for Girls International program.

But future trips are on hold, as Byrd’s health has forced her to slow way down for the time being.

Byrd’s concerns started after a difficult bout with COVID-19 in October 2020. She was the first teacher to get it at Compass Academy in Idaho Falls.

“It just kinda kicked my butt,” she says. “I was really, really sick.”

Once the typical COVID symptoms passed, she expected to be on the mend, but found herself becoming sicker and sicker.

“For six months, I threw up every day,” Byrd says. “I lost 45 pounds.”

Byrd powered through her illness and continued to teach, driven by her commitment to the students she loved.

“My students needed me,” she says.

In summer 2021, Byrd was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship, giving her the opportunity to study education and healthcare in Egypt and Jordan. According to the organization’s website, the Fulbright Program provides scholarship opportunities all over the world with the goal of creating positive intercultural connections.

It was the opportunity of a lifetime for Byrd, one that she had applied for multiple times. She wasn’t going to give up the opportunity, despite her health challenges.

“I was super nervous about going, because I didn’t feel very well,” she says. “I still felt very weak. My doctors were giving me a lot of medications that were helping me along.”

True to her nature, she struggled through the hard parts of participating in the study abroad program and had a great experience.

“I’ll probably never be able to experience the same thing that I experienced last summer,” she says.

When she returned from the trip, Byrd found herself sicker than ever.

“As soon as I got home, I collapsed,” she says. “I think I put every ounce of energy I had in that trip.”

The next school year started with Byrd sometimes barely being able to hold her head up at work. She was experiencing nerve pain throughout her body and forgetting her students’ names, which was out of character for her.

“I would look at a student, and I couldn’t even remember—do I even know this student?”

As an English teacher, she was frustrated that she was having a hard time recalling words. She once called a pencil, “That thing you write with.”

“I was starting to feel like I was going crazy,” Byrd says.

After convincing her doctors there was something more going on than the typical long COVID scenario, a series of tests were ordered to try to rule out conditions like multiple sclerosis. Finally, during a brain scan, doctors discovered the root of the problem.

“Sure enough, on my brain scan, he saw this very large tumor,” Byrd says.

She says she’d been experiencing migraines for five years, but they were always attributed to hormones. It’s possible the tumor had been there for years — or it could have started with COVID.

“The hypothesis is that COVID created this immune response in my body and possibly created that tumor when I was first infected with COVID,” she says. “No one really knows. But the important thing is that I was incredibly healthy and active before I got COVID … The tumor has absolutely caused a lot of my significant health concerns — my neuropathy, my migraines, cranial pressure, brain fog, depression, insomnia, panic attacks, and even possibly my gastroparesis (which is nerve damage in your stomach so your food doesn’t digest.)”

Doctors say the tumor is fast-growing and closing in on her optic nerve, making surgery urgent, as damage to the optic nerve could cause blindness. Byrd has chosen a doctor in Wisconsin who specializes in this type of surgery, and she’s scheduled for the surgery in May.

“It’s a full craniotomy,” she says. “Drilling into my brain, hardware, plates and screws.”

Byrd and her husband are both teachers, and Byrd says two teacher salaries and their insurance coverage aren’t enough to cover the medical, travel and housing costs their family is facing. The family will have to stay in Wisconsin for at least three weeks, and possibly up to eight weeks. She says they’ve considered taking out a personal loan or a home equity loan to cover the costs.

“We will still do that if we can’t raise the money,” she says.

Those who would like to share the burden by donating to the Byrd Family’s GoFundMe account can do so here.