Thursday, December 29, 2011

A Happy Holiday and Planning for Surgery


We had a happy, noisy, busy Christmas with all the family at Steve and Terry's new house. We had 21 people and 8 dogs and all fit nicely as the new house is much larger than the old. Steve seemed to feel good most of the day, but did need a short time-out mid-day which was unusual for him and I blame on the tumor. Everyone contributed to a fabulous meal and there was much generosity and excess in the kitchen and under the Christmas tree. Santa brought Steve all kinds of healthy things, like hand weights, an exercise mat and a treadmill. Steve continues to eat healthily. His headaches are minimal now, only requiring Tylenol occasionally. He only has sporadic problems finding words which might be not be noticeable to most people. 

Terry was on the phone most of today making arrangements for the tumor to be removed and coordinating with the insurance company.  January 3rd is now scheduled for tests all day. Starting at 8:15 Steve will have a functional MRI in the morning and at mid-afternoon is a targeted MRI. Apparently, the functional MRI helps to locate the vital speech and motor areas of the brain, specific to Steve, as there is variation among different people. This allows the surgeon to avoid those extremely important areas. The targeted MRI involves light saber electrodes attached to Steve's head and helps to identify the specific location of the tumor to be removed. Steve and Terry will also meet with the surgical nurse and anesthesiologist. Surgery itself is scheduled for 8:00 am January 4th at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in LA. Chiraq Patil will be the neurosurgeon. I don't know how long surgery is expected to take, but I'm sure it will be many hours. I will be unable to be with Steve and Terry that day, but our sister, Lesley has agreed to update this blog. I will be anxiously awaiting her updates. I hope the internet access at Cedars-Sinai is better than it was at Kaiser so we can receive frequent information. 

BEST WISHES STEVE!!

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