Today's the Day!

Well, surgery day is finally here! Think everyone got a couple of hours of sleep last night, which was awesome considering we had to be at the hospital at 5:30 this morning. Good news is the hospital has wifi, bad news is the cell phone reception is terrible.. so if we don't respond to a text, sorry! But I'll be able to update here as often as we know anything. We should get updates every two hours that Dad is in surgery, they have a pager system here that will send updates to us.

It's now 6:39 am and Dad is hooked up to the heart machines, has his IV, and we've done all the pre-surgery things. We're currently waiting for the anesthesia team to come in as well as the surgical team. Dad's particular surgery waiting wing doesn't seem too busy so hopefully the doctor will be running on time.

7:45 am- They took Dad back for surgery. We met a lot of the doctors and nurses that are on his surgical team (we're guessing his team is probably close to 20 people or more!) and they were all extremely nice and explained the basic idea of what's going to happen. It will probably be at least another hour before they start the actual surgery, as there are multiple stages to this procedure. First they are going to knock him out while they get him hooked up to everything, he's going to have a skull block which will numb the superficial nerves in the skull. They inject medicine above his eyebrows, near his ears, and at the base of the skull to numb everything. Once that is done, they'll remove a piece of his skull and use a computer to map out the exact path they will take. When they think they are ready to begin the actual surgery, they will wake him up but he'll still be in a partially sedated state. Dr. Chicoine wants him able to answer questions and move different parts of his body. After they have removed everything they can safely remove, they'll put him under full sedation with a breathing tube and do an MRI. After the MRI they'll close him back up and he'll be off to the recovery unit for a while before being moved to ICU.

9:15 am- We just got a call from a nurse on the surgery team. They started the actual surgery about 10 minutes ago and everything is going good so far.

11:00 am- Everything is still going great! Dad is responding to everything appropriately, answering questions, wiggling his toes, etc.

1:03 pm- Dad is currently in the MRI, it should take an hour or so. Dr. Chicoine will review it and determine if they can take any more of the tumor out or if they've taken as much as they safely can. Will hopefully only be a few more hours before Dad will be back in recovery. The staff is doing a great job of keeping us updated, almost like clockwork, about every two hours.

2:47 pm- Dr. Chicoine just came out to talk to us. They have finished the surgery and the MRI. They were able to remove most of the tumor however there is still a thin lining that was too close to the motor skills part of the brain to safely remove. Dad fought the initial anesthesia so they had to use a stronger medicine than originally intended, which meant he ended up needing a breathing tube. Once they finally had him under, they made the incision and were able to look at the brain lining. The tumor was not super obvious but with the computer programs and technology they had access to, they were able to locate it's exact location. Once they were ready to start removing it, they woke Dad up and Dr. Chicoine said he did really well during all the motor tests and was extremely cooperative and did everything they asked him to. At some point, he began to have difficulty moving his left hand so that's when they decided to do the MRI and quit operating. During the meeting with the doctor, the computer wasn't cooperating so we weren't able to see the images but they removed everything that was possible. He's going to be sore from the head brace they put him in and also has stitches and screws in his skull to hold the piece of bone in place that they had to cut away. They are currently working on waking him up and we'll hopefully be able to see him in the next 45 minutes, once he gets moved to recovery. After an hour or two in recovery, he'll be moved to ICU.

We do know a little bit more about the tumor now. It was a little bit bigger than a half dollar and Dr. Chicoine is almost positive that its a "Glioblastoma Multiforme" or "GMB-Grade 4 Glioma". It is a very aggressive type of tumor and Dad will more than likely have radiation and chemotherapy once he has recovered from this surgery. While he's healing, he will probably get worse before he will get better, and there's a possibility of temporary or permanent paralysis and seizures. The tumor will be biopsied and Pathology will run tests on it, they will also determine if Dad would be eligible for any clinical testing. This type of tumor obviously cannot be cured with surgery alone and over the next week we'll figure out what the best next step is from here.

3:10 pm- We'll be able to go up and see Dad around 4:30 pm. Not sure if he'll be in recovery or the ICU.

4:25 pm- We're currently waiting in the ICU waiting room for them to bring Dad up- we beat him up to his room! We all finally have service now so we're happy about that, ha!

We have the meal train set up, if anyone feels up to making meals, let me know and I can send you the link. It has our home address on it and we're not comfortable posting the direct link online since this is a public blog, but I will be more than happy to send it privately to anyone who asks. Meals have been a huge help the last couple of weeks, cannot thank our family and friends enough.

9:30 pm- Sorry for such a long delay in updates, once we were back in ICU with Dad, I just wanted to focus on him and spending time with him. Dad was in a great mood post surgery, he was cracking jokes just like normal. His left side is a little bit worse than it has been in the past, but that is considered completely normal. The brain just needs time to rest after going through surgery. Dad was pretty groggy but said that he remembers just about everything. We told him a couple of times that his left hand will probably get worse before it gets better and hopefully he'll remember that- but we'll remind him tomorrow as well. He told us that during surgery, they asked him to count backwards from 100 by 7's (100, 93, 86, etc) and he amazed the surgery team by doing so! They said that they ask people to do that expecting them to not be able to do it and they were all surprised that he could do it. Up in ICU they wouldn't let him get out of bed but he was moving his arms, hands, fingers, and toes as much as he could- he was even doing leg lifts while laying in bed. They actually let him have a real meal, not crackers and jello like he was expecting. By the time we left he was eating beef stew and carrots and was eating by himself and not making a mess. After speaking with the doctor earlier today, think we were all a little worried about what to expect but seeing him act like he always has helped ease our minds a lot.

I don't know when he'll be ready for visitors, ICU only allows two people in at a time and they don't allow any visitors from 6am-8am and then again from 6pm-8pm. Once he gets moved to a regular room, he'll probably have a roommate and visiting hours are from 11am-9pm. Weird, right? As long as he doesn't have any complications or seizures, we're hoping they'll move him to a regular room by tomorrow evening and then maybe even discharge by Thursday (Mom's birthday- wouldn't that be an awesome gift?) or Friday. Dad is determined to do whatever it takes to get out of the hospital and get home. I know once he is home, he would love to see anyone that wants to stop by.

We're exhausted, I've been up for about 17 hours now.. Today went about as well as we could have hoped. We're so blessed to have been able to have this team of doctors and specialists, along with our amazing support group. We've made it past this big obstacle and I'm sure there will be more in the future but we're just taking it all one day at a time.