Day after brain surgery, teacher reads to students on Facebook Live

BETHEL PARK, Pa. (WTAE) - Just one day after a Pennsylvania teacher had surgery to remove a brain tumor, she hopped on Facebook Live to read her elementary school students a bedtime story and let them know that she was OK.

Mrs. K.D. Meucci is a 4th grade teacher at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. She learned last week that she had a brain tumor; though, she said it was “probably benign.”

Meucci had surgery to remove the tumor Wednesday. On Thursday evening, from her intensive care unit hospital bed, she took to Facebook Live to read a bedtime story to her students, like she always does.

“I’m sorry if I look a little weird. I know I look a little weird. I got this black eye going right here because, again, they cut open my head right here to take out my brain tumor,” she told her students.

Meucci created the closed Facebook group Franklin Bedtime Stories years ago, so students and sometimes teachers could read a bedtime story to their friends at school. So, when she went to the hospital, she made sure to pack a library book.

She used the Facebook Live video to read the book, “Mr. Walker Steps Out” by Lisa Graff, and reassure her students that she will be back to school as soon as she can.

“You are my friends. You are an important part of our school community. You are an important part of our world. You are loved,” she told them. “I wanted to see you, to see that I’m OK. I look a little funky, but I wanted you to see and know that I’m OK.”

As she continues to recover, Meucci says doctors think they were able to remove the entire tumor.