Brain Surgery who would’ve thought!!

Posted by Sammy on Jul 7th, 2009 | no comments

This morning I made sure to get here bright and early. Just tied my hair up, changed, and rushed over to his room. Glad that I’m staying at the Safra Family Lodge across the street!!!! The doc was in at 6:40am (so 5 minutes early), he examined Gary again and told him they’d come for him between 7-7:15am. That turned into 8:30am. We got to pre-op and things started happening FAST. Nurses, anesthesiologists, and doctors all coming in one after the other. Around 9:30 they were ready to wheel him to the OR. I took the opportunity to find the waiting room and then head back to the lodge to bathe and then grab breakfast before I came back to wait for him. Around 11am the OR nurse called the waiting room to tell me that they started the surgery at 10:30 and that he was doing GREAT. Fantastic news!!!

Around 11:30 the two neurosurgeons came in to talk to me. Both told me that he did great. Yay! I waited a few minutes and found the recovery room. Just so happen someone was coming out, so I asked her if this was recovery. It was, I found him. But the nurse did not like that I was there. I quickly checked on him and then left back to his room. I found out that they do not want him leaving tomorrow as previously planned. They want to do his first dose of chemo using the new port to make sure its working properly (makes sense but UGH!!!). They are thinking we can go home on Friday, I sure hope so. I REALLY hope so!

Gary had a CT Scan this afternoon to check on the placement of the catheter and to make sure there was no bleeding. He has a few air bubbles in his brain but this is normal. They have him on oxygen which supposedly will help with this. They’ll have to redo the CT scan before we leave because he can’t fly with air bubbles in his brain. As for bleeding he has just some where the site is but nothing in his brain which is great news. He is in GREAT spirits. His appetite is back. He’s on the last 2 drugs of round #2 right now. So he should be disconnected some time tonight!!!!

We are hoping that this is our turning point. From here on out everything will just be getting better and better.

Oh and I have to just say WOOOOOHOOOO because this morning the doc came in and told him that his platelets were 202 as of yesterday. Ummmm this may not mean jack to any of you readers but to us this is FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC news. Low platelets are usually around the 140s, his have been at that or lower for the last 2 years. So for it to be in the 200′s. Holy SHIT! That’s just beyond awesome. So if that ain’t a sign that this crap is working, then I don’t know what is!!!!

The power of positive thinking

Posted by Sammy on May 29th, 2009 | no comments

For quite some time my good friend, PJ, has been trying to get Gary and I to watch The Secret. Finally she just went ahead and bought us the video and had it sent to our house, so no excuses to NOT watch it. So the other night since there is nothing good on TV anymore I popped in the dvd and we watched it.

She said it is inspirational and it is. A lot of the things the video talks about are things I have seen in our lives. For example, when I’ve gone into job interviews being very confident in my strengths and basically taking the job from them I always ended up with the job. The video emphasizes in how if you send out positive energy then good things will come your way. So I’ve been doing my best to change the way I think.

Like for example, with this Lodge at NIH that I put in the request for. There are only 34 rooms there so really I don’t have much chance right? Well I put in my request yesterday and instead of thinking I wouldn’t get in I’ve been thinking that I will be staying there and low and behold the social worker calls me up this morning to tell me I got in. Granted that means nothing because they can apparently bump me at the last minute (which I’m hoping doesn’t happen). Normally I’d be chanting in my head “You aren’t gonna get bumped…..You aren’t gonna get bumped”. But instead I’m chanting “You’ll be staying at the Lodge! You’ll be staying at the Lodge!”. Honestly it can’t hurt to change the way I’m thinking. We could use all of the positive vibes anyways so if it means changing my sentence a little then so be it. Worth a try, right?