Out of Surgery

Makenzie was a trooper. She started her day early with an MRI that took over an hour. Then, a few hours just waiting around. She went into surgery about 1:00 and came out about 7:15. The surgeon said it took a while, there were a lot of blood vessels in the tumor (yes, it was tumor and not a cyst) and it was a race to stay ahead of the bleeding. But she did not lose enough blood to need to be transfused. He was able to remove all of the new growth. He did not touch the old part of the tumor that is down in her brain stem as that is too risky. And right now it seems that Makenzie did not suffer any damage from the tumor resection. She did wake up, move her arms and legs, and talk a little (I know, hard to image that she only talked a little bit). They will keep her sedated and resting throughout the night. We are not sure of the pathology on the new growth yet. The pathologist said it looked like low-grade astrocytoma, but the surgeon thought it looked more aggressive. We will get test results and the brain tumor team will meet in the coming days to determine what the next steps are. Right now, we are just thankful for a successful surgery. We are also not sure if she will need her shunt replaced or not or exactly how long she will be in the hospital. That will all get figured out in the next few days. We will continue to post updates daily.

Unfortunately, because of the swine flu scare, NO VISTORS ARE ALLOWED IN THE ICU right now. She can take phone calls, you can leave a comment on her blog and we will read them to her, and we can make deliveries to her.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has called, prayed, fasted, visited, brought food, watched our boys. We are extremely grateful for the support.