I left Chase with the surgeons this morning around 8:30. They told me it would take an hour to prep him for the actual surgery, everything should take 3 to 4 hours, and that I should expect a call once they started the surgery.
In the meantime, I ate breakfast and Jan Masingill, one of my bosses, dropped by the hospital on her way out of town for Spring Break. She delivered a card that included donations from my coworkers that they gathered in a matter of hours. I was and am amazed and deeply touched by their generosity. I can't adequately express how grateful I am or how wonderful the people are in my school system. Thank you!
Right before Jan left, Rick, my husband, called and what I didn't know was that he was already in the hospital trying to find me. What a welcomed surprise since I wasn't expecting him until later.
By 10:30, I was about to come unglued because I had yet to receive a call from surgery. I left Chase's room to go to the nurse's station when my phone rang. They had started about 30 ago, which meant the entire time of the surgery was already going to take longer than anticipated.
The next phone call didn't come until 12:50. Chase was doing well but they still had longer to go. Finally at 1:21 I was told the neurosurgeons had completed their part and all that was left was the bone marrow aspiration.
He was taken to recovery at 1:47 and remained there until almost 3:15. A recovery nurse called me and said he was in considerable pain and they were working to try and manage it before bringing him to the PICU.
One of the surgeons stopped by and spoke with me about the surgery. Here's a quick run down of what we know so far:
- He will be in ICU for probably two days
- He has stitches in his neck that will need to be removed in 2 weeks.
- They were able to remove 40 - 60% of the tumor.
- The preliminary pathology looks like the tumor is consistent with an AML (acute myeloid leukemia ) tumor.
We do not have the results back from his bone marrow aspiration or the spinal tap. I was told earlier that we should hopefully have some conclusive news about the tumor by the end of today. Right now, this is a sit and wait situation. Based on what has been said, Chase will need some kind of treatment to eradicate the tumor. Whether that means radiation or chemo, I don't know. Until we have the rest of the results, they can't decide what treatment regiment he'll need, when he will start or how long it might last.
At this point, I was really hoping for more answers but it's in God's hands and I've got to leave it there. It's difficult, but at least we know what was causing his pain and the tumor is no longer threatening his well-being.
I can't thank you enough for the prayers and I will update as soon as we know more.
God Bless!
