the operation

The surgeon estimated the operation was to last about 5 hours. Marie's mother was already here, and her sister and two of her brothers flew in to lend support. We all went to the hospital and stayed together in the waiting room. Maire was taken into the operating room about 9:00am, but surgery didn't start until 11:00am. The only updates would come from a volunteer who was manning an information desk. That's how we found out that surgery began 2 hours late. Again, as I've learned over time, a delay is a normal occurrence. They could be setting up equiptment, shaving the scalp, or waiting on the anesthesiologist.

Time went by, and my children became restless. My sister-in-law and brother-in-laws took the kids and they all went to lunch. I stayed and waited for news. I honestly don't remember if my mother-in-law went to lunch or stayed with me. I was in my own world at the time. We finally received word that the procedure was going as planned and the doctor would be out to see us when it was over.

Everyone returned from lunch and we all began waiting again. Time passed as slowly as you could imagine. Every second clicked away, tic-tic-tic. No word. Tic-tic-tic. No word. Tic-tic-tic. Get the picture. My sister-in-law and brother-in-laws began to act like children. Laughing, touching things in the waiting room, playing with the phone. I know there was at lot of tension, but I found it distracting. By now it was late in the afternoon and the volunteer went home. That left no one to man the phone. We would have answered it, but there never was another call. We were not getting any updates. This was taking longer than expected, but we had no idea what was going on. There was no one, anywhere, to ask. We were totally cutoff. More hours passed and we all decided that Maries sister and brothers would take my children home. They would all stay there and wait for my call, when we did get an update. My mother-in-law stayed at the hospital with me. We continued to wait.

You have to remember this all happened on Halloween day and now it was stretching into the evening. Brain surgery on Halloween was like something out of a horror novel. I half expected the Frankenstein monster to come crashing into the waiting room. The door finally began to open. I saw a Green arm, then a green leg. It was the surgeon.

10:00pm. 

The surgery lasted 11 hours. Add that to the 2 hour delay making the whole thing a 13 hour procedure with only two updates that came early in the day. When he sat down, I didn't know what he would say. He explained that the tumor was larger than anticipated, comparing it to the size of his fist. His partner actually came in and helped him, because the tumor was so big. While he felt he got it all, he said there was a shadow, deep at the base of the tumor, which could be a small piece, or nothing at all. He wasn't concerned about it, reassuring me, if there was a recurrence, it could be handled, easily, with radiation. He again stated that he expected her to be in the hospital for a few days. Then home for full recovery. He told us to get some sleep. We went home, with the anticipation, of returning in the morning to visit a recovering surgical patient. It wasn't to be as I expected.  

The next post will explain how Marie quit smoking.