Post Surgery

7/16/10 Post Surgery
Josie is out of surgery. The day has been very rough all the way around. Once
Josie was taken to the OR, we walked down with her and it was very hard to see
her in pain, her pain med had worn off and she cried a lot and we could tell she
was hurting.
Once in the OR, the surgery started at 10:50am and finished somewhere around 4
or 4:30 (although time just meshed together, so we aren't completely sure).
The doctor came up and talked to us about the procedure and he even said that
Josie had a rough time of it in surgery. He was able to remove 50-75% of the
brain tumor, but due to excessive bleeding from the blood vessels around the
tumor, he had to close things up. The tumor has become more aggressive since
her biopsy and was putting lots of pressure on her head - which is why she was
in so much pain. Josie also had some heart issues during this time and they had
to move quickly, fortunately they did and she came out fine. She is back up in
her room recovering. She has tons of things hooked up to her and she is getting
transfusions of blood. A prayer request would be that she start making her own
blood (which she is doing) enough to keep things going well. Josie will have an
MRI tomorrow morning in order to see how much of the tumor is left. The doctor
will most likely do another surgery when she is a bit bigger (6-9 months) to
get the rest of the tumor, unless she needs one sooner - dependent on the
growth rate of the remaining tumor. For now, she is stable and actually looking
around and moving her limbs.
Here is a bit about what Josie has:
Desmoplastic Infantile Astrocytoma
Non-cancerous tumor (praise God!)
Rare form of tumor 3-5% of tumors in children and even lower percentage in
infants
We are tired tonight, so we will give more information at a later date - both
of us are having a hard time thinking.
Thank you for all your prayers - we needed them today and Josie needs continued
prayer.
Marc & Darcia