Apparently the first thing I reported to my anesthesiologists after waking up from surgery was a 'knock knock' joke that my niece had told me the day before:
Dr: Who's there?
David: Banana.
Dr: Banana Who?
David: Banana Chicken.
I asked them if they understood it. They said no and I agreed. Still trying to figure that one out.
Quickly after surgery I was in an ICU room overnight. Despite my first experience with a catheter which I won't go into... my wife and family were able to join me and laugh about the crazy things that continue to happen. For example, I was lying in the Pre-Operating Room and had someone walk up and say to me, "This might sound random, but were you just on Jasmine Star's blog?" Yes, a photography fan / Med-Student who had been specifically assigned to my case, read my story 2 days before on the blog of a photographer friend of Amy and I's. And now here she was comforting me, making small talk over the photography world, something extremely unexpected and completely comforting. Small world?
I'm not going to lie. It was scary. I was wheeled into the Operation Room where quite a few people were all rushing around and making final preparations. As the anesthesiologists were placing the mask over my mouth and asking me to take deep breaths, I can still remember what running through my head over and over until I passed out... "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Who is there to fear?" - Psalm 27:1
I woke up several hours later and was feeling pretty good despite a headache. Throughout the day, it was incredible to see the prayers that had been offered on my behalf. As I've said before, I will never speak ill-will of Facebook again. It has become a faithful tool sharing all of your thoughts and prayers with me. For that, I cannot thank you enough.
Amy spent the night in the ICU with me which was needed because it was such a frustrating night. Why? We've recently learned that my resting heart beat is extremely low. Meaning that when I go to sleep my heartbeat actually dips below about 40 beats a minute. While in the ICU I'm hooked up to heart monitors that alert the nurses just in case my heart stops or slows down. While originally set at about 60 beats a minute, they have to turn down the alarm to 50, 45, then 40 beats a minute, but can't go any lower...
What does this mean? Every time I fall asleep... every time my head drifts off (like it used to do in 6th period Physics class) to that delicious land of sleep, 3 different alarms start blaring in my ear. Despite my best attempts to bribe my nurse to turn the 'beats per minute' alert down, turn down the alert volume or turn a blind eye and unplug my machine, alas, he would not. I understand. It's his job. So pretty much, after brain surgery I got about 1-2 hours of sporadic sleep. ICU has now been turned into a sleep-torture chamber for me.
I'm praying for miraculous healing from God because if I ever have to spend the night in the ICU again, I'm not sure I'll keep my sanity.
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I want to publicly say thank you to Dr. Meyer and his surgical team. While my experience with surgeries is... limited, I couldn't have imagined it going any better. Apparently, they were able to successfully obtain samples from the tumor 'hot-spot' which allows them to get the best possible idea for what the pathology of the actual tumor is. Using a 3-D map of my brain pieced together by the results of the functional MRI to avoid any 'sensitive regions', they drilled a small pencil-size hole in my head and placed a needed through the 7 cm tumor to find this hot spot and draw out 4 different samples. Science is so freakin' cool. Operation 55 Zebra = Biopsy Success.
While Dr. Meyer is like a hard-core fighter pilot or an astronaut exploring the outer-reaches of what is capable through brain surgery, he is very careful about what he says about hope. Over and over again, he has made it very clear that from a surgical standpoint, I have an inoperable brain tumor. But he has been the only person we've been able to speak with up until this point. After a successful biopsy, he was able to pass me onto an oncologist who could shed some light on the post-biopsy situation.
Dr. Uhm was brilliant in an entirely different way. He explained to me all of the potential outcomes of the biopsy and detailed what the best / worst scenarios were. I knew I really liked him when he started explaining the situation like this...
"There are 3 of you sitting in this room with me. Let's pretend there is an assassin attempting to kill one of you. What is the best way he could possibly do it? Well, theoretically, he could..."
I was sold. I didn't even care what else he had to say. This was awesome. And eventually he somehow turned this assassination story into a medical decision tree explaining all of the possible outcomes. About an hour later he told me what he 'thinks' I have based on the current evidence. We will however not know this until Monday when final results are in. This meeting was rare. Why? I met with a super-genius whose time is worth more than I could ever imagine who was 'speculating' about my diagnosis with no test results. What?! Anyway, I am so thankful he even TOOK this meeting without the results being back in! So now we can pray for exactly for what we want the test results to be.
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." - Phil. 4:6-7
So, here it is! I ask that you would pray repeatedly and with thanksgiving for the following results! Based on the samples pulled from my noggin, the best possible outcome for my tumor results would be:
"Grade II - Oligodendroglioma with a co-deletion of chromosomes 1p/19q"
You can read about the science here. The interesting chromosomal deletion mentioned in the above results is a heightened sensitivity to chemotherapy and improved diagnosis. While we won't know about the co-deletion for another week, the actual treatment program will be exactly the same. The chromosomal deletion would be just an extra bit of good-news!
Dr. Awesome then suggested I talk with Dr. Paul Brown, a Radiation Specialist who could explain a few more things to me on the side of treatment. I kid you not... 5 minutes later I was sitting in a room with Dr. Brown who answered every single question we could throw at him. He explained to me the medical advancements in Chemotherapy and Radiation treatments which was very surprising to hear! We have another meeting with him on Monday which will take into account the final pathology results delivered by Dr. Uhm. Again, so impressed with these doctors and their abilities.
After Monday, we will be returning home to Grand Rapids and putting together a treatment plan for the near future. We have received so much hope from these 2 new doctors that the size of the tumor can be either maintained, meaning the situation will not get worse and I'll stay relatively the same as I am now OR the tumor could actually shrink relieving some of the stress currently being put on my brain. Obviously there are many more details, but this post is already long enough.
I will keep you all updated over the weekend, as well as share some of the other stories / blessings that have come from all of this. I love you all very much. Thank you for your continued prayers that this story will glorify God. As I said before and will say again many times, This is His story and I'm honored to participate in it.
