Community Rallies For Brick Memorial Teacher Battling Rare Masses

BRICK, NJ — A Brick Memorial teacher and her family are receiving a wave of support from friends and the community while they search for treatments as she battles a diagnosis of rare masses in her head.

Margaret Mussel, who has been an Italian teacher for 12 years and is the adviser for the Italian National Honor Society at Brick Memorial High School, was diagnosed just after Christmas, according to a GoFundme set up to help with her medical expenses.

After spending Christmas with her husband and two sons, Mussel's speech was inexplicably slurred and her husband took her to the hospital, wrote Nicollette Burger, the family friend who started the campaign.

"What happened next could only be described as earth shattering," Burger wrote. Within hours, Mussel was suffering from seizures that immediately impacted her ability to move and speak normally. Doctors found Mussel has four masses in her brain.

"Praying for you and your family. I believe with all my heart in miracles. Have faith, and stay strong," another donor wrote.

The couple has certainly seen miracles in the past. They made news in 2017, when they found Margaret's lost engagement ring in Italy, right in the spot where she'd lost it nine years earlier.

Margaret's husband, Justin, has been searching for answers and moved Margaret to a hospital with doctors who specialize in what she is facing. The diagnosis is "daunting," Burger wrote.

"Justin is steadfastly searching to find innovative treatments and procedures that will guide his bride down the road to a full recovery and a long and healthy life with their family," Burger wrote.

Donations and messages of support and praise have come in from fellow staff members, former students, parents of students and family and friends fill the page.

"I knew her from school and just thought she is the nicest person," one person wrote.

"Margaret is not only a friend and neighbor, but part of our family," another said.

Members of the staff at Brick Memorial called her "wonderful and kind," "a beautiful person" and "a wonderful teacher."

"Margaret is a lovely person, wonderful wife and mother, and a dedicated teacher," one fellow staffer wrote.

The GoFundme has raised more than $15,000 so far. You can donate at this link.

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Photo via GoFundme, a Patch promotional partner