And up up we go!

Wednesday – 10:30AM
They took Jimmy for his first surgery just before 9 this morning. They took him to the special cath operating room, with all sorts of radiology equipment. They plan to run some lines through a main artery in his leg, through his body, up through his brain, and just before the tumor. Then they put some mixture in the vein to block blood flow to the tumor. The tech has just come out for the 2nd update and said that he’s about half way done and he’s put in about 7 or 8 patches of blocking goo stuff in. (He said it’s a mixture something like ground up glass and blood coagulation stuff). If this weren’t my kid and I weren’t so terrified, this would be interesting stuff to study. But, I’ve decided that working at the clinic on computers is about as close as I want to come to some of these poor patients. For now it’s so far so good. The tech has said his numbers are good, his pressure is good, respiratory rate, etc. While he’s been asleep for the last couple of days, they’ve had to add more and more paralytic drugs into his system. He’s what they call ‘light’ under anesthesia. In his room on Monday while under tons of anesthesia and laying in bed, he sat up and tried to talk, was listening and looking around fine, and when the nurse told him to lay down and go back to sleep, he did. So, they’re watching him close. The plan is to finish up with this procedure and then take him in to his other surgery about 11:45. That’s the plan anyway.

I feel so hopeless. I keep trying to figure things out that I should be doing. I’ve given him several father’s and Priesthood blessings, had the Elders from the church give him a Priesthood blessing. I’ve rallied the family, ward, work, and 5500 JOTD readers to fast and pray for him. It’s all in the Lord’s hand now. I know, that whatever happens, Jimmy can be ours forever.

Wednesday 2PM
They finished up the 1st surgery by about 11:00 AM. The surgeon was able to block 2 main vessels going to the tumor, and several little ones. There was one that also fed good tissue that he didn’t block, and they’ll try to get it during the next surgery. They just took Jimmy in to his 2nd surgery. They should be able to update us in the next few hours. Since my work has blocked access to the website where I put updates, I’m going to go out and find a hotel that has high/speed internet access and try to connect there.

They think that the type of tumor is an ependymoma, but the tests still haven’t come back from pathology. So now it’s just a waiting game.

Wednesday 5PM
HALALUJIA! Doc came out, said it went much better than expected. He said the difference between Sunday and today’s surgery was like night and day. The anesthesiologist said it was almost disappointing that it was so easy. (Oh, maybe to him!) After they ‘embolised’ two main arteries and a bunch of little ones, it made a huge difference in getting the tumor out. They left the bone flap out, so that the brain can swell and do it’s thing, but he said with the tumor gone, there’s extra room so things should be ok. Doc said they are going to leave him under until at least tomorrow morning, then if everything goes ok, they’ll start to wake him up. There still could be problems with weakness on the right side, and problems with the eye, but we’re still not sure until tomorrow or later. Said the oncologist would talk to us and see what type of treatment we’ll be going on from here. Your fasting and prayers made all of the difference in the world. Thank you thank you THANK YOU! We're not out of the woods yet, but as my #1 mom says, we're a heck of a lot closer!

Marty