Kelly Stafford, the wife of former UGA QB Matthew Stafford, is planning to undergo surgery for a recently diagnosed brain tumor.
Stafford, who is a former UGA cheerleader, announced the news on her Instagram account on Wednesday.
Kelly and Matthew married in 2015 after a lengthy courtship while both were students at UGA. The couple has three daughters, including 2-year-old twins and a baby born last summer.
In Stafford’s Instagram account, she said she did ballet with her daughters, and began to “feel dizzy and off balance” and then had several vertigo spells. She was later diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Stafford went into details about the medical situation on Instagram: “I had a tumor sitting on some of my cranial nerves. The medical term they used was an acoustic neuroma or vestibular schwannoma.. All I heard was brain tumor & that they had to do surgery to take it out.. so that is what we are going to do & we believe we found the best doctor to do it.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t completely terrified of brain surgery. I am. I am terrified of them opening my head, I’m terrified of losing my hearing, I’m terrified of losing facial function, I’m terrified of far worse things that could happen and I’m terrified that I won’t take the time I need to recover because the guilt I might feel of being absent from my kids for too long..
“I am telling y’all this to ask for prayers and support.”
Matthew, 31, is scheduled to begin his 11th season with the NFL’s Detroit Lions later this summer.
