Sometime my life just don't make sense at all...

Well it's 11:30 pm Pacific time almost the 29th. I feel like a news reporter that has to write a story by midnight of a train that wrecked while his family was on board. Wow what an emotional train wreck of a day.

Everything was going as planned. Dana was all ready for surgery, gowned up, IV in, last minute well wishes from parents and kids, sitting on the bed shaking, waiting for the moment. All the anxiety of the past year+ culminates to the reality of the beginning of the rest of her life.

The Anest. came in after a very long and painful wait and was really concerned about her not using the CPAP and how that would affect her. This is something that was known by the surgical team and why we met with Dr Gil (Pulmonary) the night before to discuss how bad it would be for the pressure CPAP creates on the inside of the nose, it could compromise the healing process. This we knew and were prepared to deal with.

The Anest thought it would be a good idea to stay intubated overnight to help heal the first night, which isn't something we had discussed with the team yesterday, but seemed logical enough. It would be hard for the kids to see her intubated etc but we can deal with that also.

All the warmth and love and caring from the surgical team we got yesterday suddenly flushed down the sewer when this guy said "well you don't really have any serious side effects from this tumor, why don't you go home and lose about 50 pounds, come back another time it would make it a lot easier for all of us."

I'm not really sure if words can describe the amount of anguish that created.

Eventually Dr Kassam and the rest of the team came in the try to smooth things over. Damage was already don't. Thoughts of leaving to go home were trying to impair sound judgement. She felt like that scene in Rosemary's Baby where they are all huddling around the mother whose child they wanted.

Her safety is their main concern and they were worried that without the CPAP if she can't get air they'd have to do an emergency trache. This was never discussed previously where the heck was this guy yesterday when we were going over all these details? The anest. report is very important, they say, so why wasn't he in on the consultation yesterday? Why did this wait until the last minute, five minutes before surgery was supposed to start?

The want to do a sleep study tonight without the CPAP to see how she might respond after the surgery. A good idea logically but the way it was presented did not go over very well to say the least. This could have been done last night, or the night before, or for that matter a few weeks ago in Elgin!

They have tentatively rescheduled for next Wednesday, the best they can do with the holiday weekend, also  depending on the results of the study tonight. So now we'd be talking another 4-5 days of certainly increased anxiety, plus the expense of an extra week of house & car rental, changing plane tickets, missing work, missing the girls' dance recital...

Hold me Jesus, I'm shaking like a leaf....

It's real easy to look back at all these owls in the road and say it's part of God's plan when everything seems to fall into place. Well, it's not really easy, but it seems to make sense. Then something like this happens, it doesn't make sense. Six months ago she prayed, "God, if this really needs to come out, make it grow." It grew. Many times we have prayed (and others prayed for us) to make the path clear and straight. It has been.

Up until now. Is this really part of the plan? Or is this just a distraction? We don't know yet, but we pray that we will someday.

Ironically, the Anest. name was "Dr. Go". We went.

++ dps ++

Someone in my condition needs the Great Physician

Good morning! Wanted to leave a quick post in case you were up this early wondering how Dana is doing and praying for her surgery that was supposed to happen at 7am, half an hr ago from when I am writing.

I would like to say that the surgery was cancelled because her MRI yesterday showed the tumor was gone, but that would not be the truth. It was actually pushed back to 12:00 noon because the team has a couple of emergency surgeries they wanted to do before ours. Good news, we can sleep in a little (previously they wanted us there at 5am) but bad news, she still can't eat anything prior so she has a longer time of fasting :-(

Last night we met the surgical team fir the first time. What a breath of fresh air that was! They were all very kind, compassionate, caring, and even funny! Dr. Kassam, the surgeon who pioneered the endonasal approach, and Dr. Kelly took the time to answer all of her questions, explained everything in detail and gave honest expectations based on experiences and statistics. When something important arose, like how she was going to sleep without the CPAP for 6 weeks, they brought in Dr. Gil to discuss it. We definitely had a "Patch Adams" moment with Dr. Asia, the Internal Med guy. If these guys were (metaphorically) the magi coming in from the east, Dr. Asia definitely brought the "mirth" while the others brought gold and incense.

We definitely made the right choice coming out here. The team is not only the most highly skilled, but also the most caring and human. They held her hand, looked in her eyes and said "don't worry, we will take good care of you". Wen Dr. Kassam had to leave to tend to something else, he kept coming back to check on her (we were there for the consultation almost two hrs!). Dr. Gil called her at 9pm and left a message reminding her not to eat after 12:00 and that they would be caring for her in the morning! Just amazing... We are so blessed that God has made this type of health care available to us in this great time of need. (Hoo-hoo)

"But oh, Mr. Blog person, what happened to telling us about why we are in CA not PA?" you ask? sorry, that is going to have to wait a little, we are leaving for the hospital now. Dontcha love cliffhangers?

++ dps ++