UPDATE: Out of Surgery

Hello all. Dad is out of surgery. We just met with Dr. Lacin (surgeon) and he said it was a success. He was able to go in cleanly and remove the tumor without any difficulty. In fact, Dr. L noted that dad was able to move his left arm on his own (slightly), which is the first time he's been able to do that in a couple of weeks. Dad is in the recovery room right now and will be there for the next couple of hours. Once he comes out of anesthesia, he will be moved to ICU where he'll be monitored overnight. If all goes well there, he'll be moved back up to the 6th floor to sub-ICU. Dr. L said that his goal is to get dad home before Christmas, possibly by Tuesday, but I believe it might be a little early to say on that.

I want to take a minute to simply say "thank you, God." Today is a good day-- the main goal was accomplished and the source of dad's pain has been removed, so we are hopeful that he will be considerably more comfortable now.

Thank you for your prayers and support this morning. We'll be at the hospital throughout the day. Please feel free to shoot us a comment via the comment box with this posting and I'll share it with mom and everyone. Thanks!

We're Off to Surgery

Hello all. It is 7:05 and we just saw dad off to the OR just a few minutes ago. I'll be blogging throughout the morning providing updates as we have them. I can tell you that dad was more alert this morning than he has been the past couple of days, which is nice since we were all here and got the chance to talk with him a little. He told us of several things that he's planning to do after all of this is past us, including playing baseball with his grandson (gotta get that kid walking first!) and going up to Boone to watch Appalachian play football next season. So, you could easily say he's in pretty good spirits this morning.

The surgery will likely begin somewhere around 7:45 a.m. and should last about 1.5 hours. I'll provide more updates as we have them.

Thanks for the prayers-- please keep lifting dad up this morning.

Surgery

Hello all. After meeting with the neurosurgeon this morning, we've learned the the tumor on top of dad's brain seems to be getting agitated by the radiation treatments and the radiation is not having the desired effect on it as it seems to be with the other spots. As a result, the swelling of that tumor is what seems to be causing the head pain, which leads to the increase in the use of the pain medication, which leads to dad pretty much being asleep much of the time. So, the neurosurgeon (Dr. Lacin) has recommended that dad have surgery to remove that spot. Dr. L indicated that on the scale of brain surgery, this is not one of the more complicated ones and by his reading of the MRI, the tumor seems to be perfectly positioned to be removed as it doesn't appear to be intertwined with anything else.

So, here's where things are. We are on-deck for dad to have surgery tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m. The surgery involves removing a section of his skull, going in, plucking out the tumor and closing things back up. The surgery should last about 1.5 hours.

Beyond that, we don't know what the next steps are. However, whatever they are, we will certainly let you know.

So, we have a few specific prayers:
1. Please pray for wisdom for the neurosurgeon, Dr. L. Pray that God will guide his hands and use his skill to remove this tumor and alleviate the pain that dad has been experiencing.
2. Pray for strength for dad, mom and all of us. I'm not sure what else I can say about that one.
3. Pray for a miracle of healing, that God will completely remove this cancer from dad's body and will restore him to health.

Thank you all for your prayers and support.