Alison had surgery today, and it went well. The surgeon described the procedure as one where he removed both the 1 cm area that had grown near the prior tumor, as well as the surrounding area that was becoming more prominent on the MRI scans. He described this to Kirk as completely removing "the tumor" plus the area of enhancement around it that showed up on the MRIs; it isn't entirely clear what this area of enhancement is (?tumor, old blood, necrosis from the Avastin?), so we will wait to hear what the formal pathology report is. It takes a few days to have the tissues prepared and the report back. The surgeon felt confident that this new surgery won't impact Alison's brain function negatively, meaning it won't take anything away how she was seeing/hearing/moving/thinking prior to surgery. That's a big deal, because the surgery is quite an ordeal to get through, and he wanted to let us know he didn't have to harm any healthy brain tissue.
Whit and I saw her in the Neuro ICU, where she was speaking quite coherently (and actually was quite cute in her responses!) but obviously had one heck of a headache. The ICU nurse was monitoring all the critical things carefully, especially pain and nausea, and staying on top of those symptoms with liberal doses of medication. We do love our ICU nurses, don't we! So the task in the next days is to get the pain under control. She'll have an MRI within the next 24 hours for the new post-surgical "baseline". But for someone who just had a big ol' surgery, she looked remarkably good - good color, very appropriate and sweet in her responses.
She's got Kirk and Dani and Dani's BF Matt there this evening to feed her ice chips and keep an eye on her. So far, so good - we'll keep you posted as she progresses. And be sure that she appreciates all your messages of love and support - thank you for keeping her in your thoughts!
Love to all,
Deborah
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Alison, you cutie hero.
ReplyDeleteGoodest news I could get, that things seem to have gone so well.
We must live each day as though we would live forever, and as though we would die tomorrow.
With love and concern,
Michael
Phew!! Thanks Deborah for posting a progress note so quickly, we are relieved to hear it went well. Fingers-crossed it will be something "old" and NOT anything "new". :/
ReplyDeleteOur Dear Alison, how we miss you!
Somehow we missed each other on New Year's Eve. Mom showed me your card, and the nyjer feeder for the various finches - I'll put it up for them - we all THANK you and Kirk for such a fun gift. "These boids are gettin' spoilt"!
A big healing-hug to you...virtually!! Hope the nurses are GOOD to you - keeping the pain down as much as possible.
Hang in there my friend, Love your sometimes-Berkeley-sometimes-Bodega Bay-neighbor & colleague - BedeBug