Before the roller coaster plunge

We spoke with the nuro surgeon about 11:45 this morning. He showed us the CT scans from yesterday, the morning after the surgery. It appears that the brain is pushing the tumor out of the head through the bone flap (where they left the bone out of the skull). He said that even if they radiated it today, we wouldn’t see results soon enough. He said it appeared to be a fast growing tumor, so they were between a rock and a hard place, and that after talking with his partner, they want to do another surgery and take it out tomorrow. There are risks, including too much blood loss, weakness or paralysis on the right side of his body, and others. He said it wouldn’t be easy but on the other hand it may come out just fine. He said sometimes it’s easier to operate the 2nd time around, because they know what’s going on. They may have a team come in before surgery and try to block the blood vessels to the tumor, but there are risks of that also. They’ll do another CT scan in the morning, and do the surgery early afternoon. My sweet wife and I are asking all who would be willing, to fast and pray tomorrow for Jimmy and his surgeons tomorrow, on Wednesday, August 17, 2005.