We all woke up around 7:30, but we did not arrive at the hospital until 9:30. Once again, we had gotten a worried call from Mom because she was told that surgery had been moved up to 11:00 am. Elliot stayed at Jeremy’s with Micah, and we took the baby to the hospital with us. Suzette and Joel had offered to come up in the morning to help watch the baby while we sat with my mom. We met with Dr. Olivi again, and then we started the wait for the surgery.
Because my mom’s surgery was scheduled after another surgery, they could not give us an exact start time. I think the waiting and worrying is the hardest. Around 12:00, they came by to tell us the first surgery was complete and it would be less than an hour before they took my mom back. We met with the anesthesiologist, and an army of doctors and nurses. My mom talked about her poor reactions to anesthesia, and they developed a plan of action to try and keep her from vomiting post-surgery.
Unfortunately, it was nearly 2:00 before they finally came to take my mom back. We kissed her and wished her good luck. She was in good spirits, but definitely worried. By that time, we had a small army of visitors – Diane and Joey, Sheila and Les, and Suzette and Joel. They spent the day chasing my children around while I…to be honest, I’m not sure what I did. I think I fielded phone calls, and talked to doctors, and worried. I do think, however, the Micah had a wonderful day – he played with toys, and he had a whole lot of attention showered on him. At 3:00, we were informed that they were just starting the surgery. At 4:50, we were told they were finished resecting the tumor, but had to close Mom up. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Olivi came down to talk to us.
The news was not good – he said the tumor was malignant, aggressive and pervasive. Apparently, it had invaded the entire right hemisphere of her brain. He felt he was able to resect about 40-50% of the tumor, and he felt we had a good chance that my mom’s function would return to her pre-surgical state. Because they were unable to resect more tumor, they did not implant the chemo wafers in her brain. We talked about her survival, and he said that the average time for this type of tumor was a year, but because of the aggressive nature of her tumor, he felt we would be on the shorter side of that. Dr. Olivi also said he would stick around to see my mother wake up so he could check her neurological function and he would talk to us again later.
It was a long wait, but we finally got back to see Mom around 6 or so. She was awake and talking, and we felt good about things. We said good night, and we all decided to head home. Erik and Jack were waiting for us downstairs with the rest of our family friends. Suzette and Joel offered to drive my father back home (since his car was still at Suburban Hospital), and Elliot and I decided to head back to Bethesda with the kids.