Events the day of surgery

The hospital was very busy on Tuesday, and my surgery got pushed out from 7am to like 9:30am. My BFF Matt came by first thing in the morning to wish me luck from my hospital room:

They wheeled me off to Pre-op at about 9:00, my sister Jean accompanied me until they actually wheeled me into the operating room. The Pre-op area was very hectic, and I could not believe how  many questions the doctors and nurses were asking me, and getting irritated when I got confused. When one of the nurses accused me of withholding some information, Jean really got in their business and you could almost see tails going between their legs walking away. It was a blessing Jean was there for me.

Things get a bit fuzzy in the story here. I was wheeled into the OR and all I can recall is that I was upset that I did not have my glasses on the see all the cool equipment. The anesthesiologist said good night.....and I was out.

The next think I feel is that I thought I was dying. It was a very distinctive sliding feeling from reality. I was trying to scream and kick my feet, but nothing doing. Then I heard the doctor tell me that I am waking up and I should take slow deep breaths. The doctor was right, the surgery was over (I think it took under 2 hours), and I was still alive. The put me in a post op area for a while where several friends were able to come and see me. I had a really bad headache, it was noisy there. There was no ICU room available, so I think I was in that area for a couple hours.

During pre-op and operation, My sister Renee, Friends Izzy, Deb, and Lynn (sorry if I missed anyone) Were with Holly in the waiting room. Thank you so much for your support during this period.

I eventually got into my ICU room, not sure what time it was. I was very frazzled and had a bad headache. I eventually got a nurse in the room that listened and took good care of me. I was eventually able to get my headphones in and lay there listening to music on my Ipod all night. The battery on the Ipod went dead at about 5am (bummer) and I watched TV for a while. The doctors came in doing tests every 30 minutes or so, and eventually told me I could go home if I wanted to. I jumped at that.

Right now (with pain medication for pounding headache) I feel OK.  I did not loose any feeling, cognitive ability or motor control as a result of this procedure. The doctor only did a biopsy, he did not attempt to remove the entire tumor. He did say that he got a good portion of it to reduce some of my symptoms. So now from here, we have to wait for the biopsy/pathology results, and we will meet with Dr Munos next week to determine where to go from here.


Till then, I will keep my spirts up and sport my stylin' crew cut

-Ed