Biopsy Completed

Wow was this an ordeal! The neurosurgeon called me around 7 on Thursday evening and told me to take him to the emergency room on Thursday and they would get him checked in the surgery would be sometime Friday. We got over to the ER at 3 pm on Thursday and ended up getting in to a room about 7. Once I got Dad settled in, I headed home.

I got up Friday morning about 7 got showered and dressed and my phone rang at 7:50 and it was the nurse saying that the surgery would be at 8:30, so I headed over to the hospital. I got there about 8:10 and we waited. And waited. About 10:45, the nurse came in. Dad was out walking the halls and she told me that he wasn't on the surgery schedule until 2:45, so she wasn't sure why they had told us 8:30. By this time, Dad got really upset. He was already very anxious to have the procedure done and finding out that we had already been waiting for 2 hours past the time they had told us and that we would have to wait 4 more hours until the actual surgery, he really lost it. I stepped out of the room and the nurse came back in and calmed him down some. He told me to go take a break for a while and get some lunch or take a nap since we were just going to be waiting longer.

I headed over to my Mom's who only lives a couple of blocks from the hospital and managed to get about a 30 minute nap. I was about to get up and go get some lunch when Dad called and said that they had let him take a shower and he was calmed down and I could come back. I picked up some lunch and headed back to the hospital. 2:45 came and went and we waited. And waited some more. Finally, around 4:30, the nurse paged the surgeon to find out what the deal was. He was in the middle of a surgery that went longer than expected and was relaying info from his operating room nurse to our nurse. He did say that once he was finished up with that patient, he would come to the hospital we were at and do Dad's surgery.

In the mean time, Dad had not eaten in almost 24 hours. He was very hungry, anxious, and hadn't smoked a cigarette either. Luckily, the nurse had given him a nicotine patch and was allowing him to eat ice chips. Not much, but enough to get him through.

Finally, at 6:20, they came up to get him to take him to surgery. The surgeon had told us that the procedure would only take an hour. He didn't bother to tell us that they were taking out 6 different samples and each sample they took would require about 30 minutes a piece to be analyzed under the microscope, so it was about 10:20 when the surgeon came out and spoke with us and let us know that he was out of surgery. Since it was so late, they did not keep him in the recovery room and put him straight in ICU so that he could be watched closely through the night. The nurse to patient ratio in ICU is 1:2 and on a regular floor, it is 1:6 and they really wanted to make sure that everything was ok after the surgery. Darrell and I went in and saw him briefly in ICU, but he was still pretty loopy from the anesthesia and he was really tired, so we left the hospital about 10:45.

Darrell had picked Reagan up around 5:30 and took him to Mom's and I had told Mom that if she had not heard from us by about 8 to take him to our house and get him bathed and in bed, so he was fast asleep by the time we got home. I got very little sleep on Friday night, but I got up and met some friends to run on Saturday. With only 2 months until the San Antonio Half Marathon, I really have to get my running in gear. I needed to run about 5 or 6 yesterday, but I haven't run since the week before my surgery and being as tired as I was yesterday, I only managed about 3, but that still felt so good just to be out doing something.

Darrell had to work for a few hours yesterday, so he took Reagan to Mom's on his way to work and I actually met them over there because I went to Mom's to shower and change before heading to the hospital. I got over there yesterday at about 10:30 and stayed with him until around 3:30. He was doing well and was in a pretty good mood. He was still in ICU and was just waiting for them to get him back in a regular room. He said he hadn't really slept much at all the night before because they checked his vitals every hour.

About 3:30, I left and went and got Reagan and headed home. We ended up staying home for the rest of the evening. One of Dad's friends got their shortly after I left and stayed with him until he got put into a room, which was around 7 yesterday.


I actually got 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep last night, thanks to a friend giving me a sleep aid yesterday. I was so very thankful for that and it could not have come at a better time. I went to bed about 10:30 last night and didn't wake up until 8:30 this morning. It was awesome.

I got over to the hospital about 10:30 this morning and we didn't get Dad out of there until just after 6 today.

Next step is the oncologist. I will call tomorrow and set up the appointment for that later this week. By then, they should have the results of the biopsy and we can discuss a treatment plan.