Pre-Op Friday

More appointments today..fun.....  Few hours of reviewing my medications, waiting, talking to the doctor, waiting, meeting with anesthesiologist, waiting, blood work and pre-admission paperwork.  This was a lot of time spent shuffling from floor to floor, room to room for several hours.

Q & A with Dr. Chang, my surgeon:

How long will the first surgery be? About 3 hours. Electrodes will be placed on my brain .

Me: Can I video the surgery?
Dr. Chang: No video of his surgeries is allowed (Damn)

How confident are you of this surgery? As the tumor moves closer to my speech and movement areas I am wondering just how worried the doctor is over this.
Dr. Chang: I do over 500 of these surgeries a year. In terms of complexity your case is boring (his actual words).
What you don't want, is an interesting case, that all the doctors are talking about. From our standpoint your surgeries will be pretty straight forward.

Will I need radiation?
Dr. Chang:  Let's wait and see what grade of tumor we are working with. If it is still a grade 2 Oligo, we may delay. However, if it is a grade 3 oligo, then some type of other action may be required.

Check in time is on Monday 2/2 at 6:15 am with a surgery start time of 8:15am. First patient of the day!!!! Once the surgery is completed (2-3 hours) I will be in the ICU for the next 24 hours. Then, I will be moved the the epilepsy ward for monitoring for the week.
At least I will have my own room where I can have one visitor stay the night with me.

During the second surgery on Feb 9th, they will remove the tumor and "do a color by numbers" for the seizure focus (again his words not mine). Basically they will be looking for data on which electrodes produce a seizure and removing those areas, if safe.
Again, I will be in ICU for 24 hours, then moved to a shared room (UGH) for 3 days before going home.

No matter how many times I have seen this doctor I can't believe he is this calm talking about my brain!

Stanford CyberKnife Launch

I haven't yet decided if I will go through radiotherapy when I am done with surgery and my recovery. There is some new research that shows that for my kind of tumor there "may" be longer survival rates if radiation is done right after surgery. If my tumor grade has gone up, then it will be likely I do radiotherapy.

CyberKnife M6 Series

Though the name, CyberKnife suggests surgery

5 day countdown

Seizures...

Miyajima, Japan

The first time I had a seizure 10 years ago I thought I was dying... Seizures are the worst part of my life. In fact, they ruin my life. More than having a brain tumor.

I am lucky enough to get a warning sensation called an aura before most seizures. Maybe like 10 seconds - enough time to try and lie down, calm myself, and take an Atavin.  The seizures have happened in all different situations and places. During meetings at work, in my office, at home. They just happen and usually just randomly.

Family and Friends...

I've been fortunate to have a great number of family and friends that support me through each surgery.

Recently, I've been keeping busy with friends and family -

I had a great weekend at the Vegas Rock-n-Roll Marathon, thanks to Adam and Julie. We ran, lost some money, won some money and had a really good time.

What's on my mind...

I've been really fortunate to come out of my past surgeries "ok". No right side body weakness, no speech issues and with my personality (kind of) intact. Thankfully, I was able to return to my family and work with almost no accommodations. I have seizures but...

Functional MRI (FMRI)

Usually the point of any MRI is to be very still. Any movement will render the scan obsolete. This MRI was different.

My brain MRI's are usually about 40 minutes or so.  I had my first one right after the doctor told me I had a brain tumor 10 years ago, after a CT scan found the tumor. Now I've had too many to count. Probably 4 per year so I'm coming up on 40 or so. The last 15 minutes or so I usually receive an IV of Gadolinium. This allows for some additional information

OK, it's getting real...

It's a good thing we scheduled this meeting! Our first pre-op with my epilepsy specialist, Dr. Fisher, was today. If you are going to "have" a seizure condition this is the guy

Medical Leave - Day 1

Today was the official start of my medical leave.  Today was also the start of many appointments. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic.

How it began...

In December of 2004, I had a grand mal seizure at work and ended up at Stanford Hospital. Within a few hours, I was told that I had a tumor the size of a golf ball in the left frontal lobe of my brain.

I was admitted and a few days later I had my first surgery to remove the tumor. I learned that I had a Stage 2 Oligodendroglioma. I was 27 years old. The first recovery was pretty rough but, I recovered and was back at it. I was back at it...