Wednesday, March 26, 2008

News about The Big Surgery

Ok, we just finished talking to Dr. Oghalai. He has a great bedside manner. Here is some kind of gist as to what he said.
The tumor is not considered to be largely vascular. That means there will not be a lot of blood loss. Dr. Oghalai's feeling is that the angiogram confirmed that the tumor is not a paraganglioma and is likely a meningioma. It is compressing the brain and invades the jugular foramen and the nerve to the throat and ear particularly. Tracy will have a near total resection of the tumor. That means the intention is to get as much of the tumor out. She will most likely have a feeding tube for 6 to 8 weeks, possibly a trachiotomy (Dr. Oghalai does not want to do one, so he is going to try and keep that from happening), certainly a breathing tube, for a couple of days, shoulder might be weak and tongue could be weak. She will feel like she is spinning when she tries to stand because she will not have the mechanism in her ear to keep her balance. She is to expect clumsiness. She will always have some meningioma in her head and may have to have radiation treatments in the future to knock it out if necessary. It is expected right now that she will be in some kind of hospitalization for about 2 months. Unfortunately, that is knocking on the door of, and actually passing the date of Christopher and Rachel's wedding on May 17th. But hey, we are gonna just have to see. Pray for us folks so that Tracy can recover miraculously quickly and effectively.
As has been stated before, Tracy will lose the function of her right ear, so she will be deaf forever in that ear. The muscles to the face and throat are likely to be damaged and will cause her face to droop and make it such that she can't swallow. She will have to learn how to swallow again and may have to have further surgery to restore some function to the right side of the face.
Other nerves that could be affected (but are not expected) are the right eye which would cause it not to move to one side (thus, Tracy would be able to look straight ahead and to one side, but looking to the other side, the right eye would not follow); she may lose sensation to the face; and she could have a major stroke, which of course could be disabling or fatal. Now, remember, the eye, the face and the stroke are not expected.
Dr. Oghalai does not want Tracy in a drug induced coma, but she will be in a light sedation. She will be groggy.
Visitors can't really expect to see Tracy probably through the end of this week at the least. She will be in NICU working on recovering and will be groggy at best. She could be in NICU even two weeks, but it could be just a week.
We have had lots of family visitors today. What a blessing.

OH HEY! Tomorrow if you decide to come to the hospital tomorrow, you know you won't see Tracy (Her surgery starts at 7:00 a.m. and will not finish until even after 10:00 p.m. But I understand a lot of folks are coming by to show their support and love. It will be a long wait in the neurosurgery waiting room. That is on the 3rd floor of the Dunn tower, which is between Methodist Main building and Fondren. When you come into the lobby at Methodist, take the escalators at the back (east side) three floors up, turn to the right and you are facing the waiting room. OR just ask the information desk where the neurosurgery waiting room is.
I'll write more as I find it out. Praise the Lord! He is good.

Jeff

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jeff,
Your updates are an encouragement to my faith. Im thankful for you and Tracy. I thought of the verse this morning - "The eyes of the Lord search to & fro throughout the earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him." He is mighty to save....
We love you both...
Paul & Shirley