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Mom Is Doing Amazing

It’s hard to believe that a week ago tomorrow, I was fairly convinced that we were going to lose mom either entirely, or at least how we’ve always known her to be.

Her surgery was at 7:30 on Tuesday morning, and they actually didn’t get started until 9:30 because they were trying to get her knocked out for it and in position. The operation ended up lasting around 6 hours total, and was the longest 6 hours of all of our lives I believe. The doctor, Dr. Quiñones, and 2 of his team came into the waiting room when they were done, all smiling with their hands in the air. He said it was an absolute complete success and it couldn’t have went better than it did. They worked slowly removing every bit of it all the way to the stem from where it originated. It ended up being about the size of a grapefruit and the hardness of one of those little bouncy balls.

About an hour or so after the surgery, we were able to go into NSCCU and see her. She was still heavily medicated, but she was able to call for each of us by name. We took turns sitting with her until time was up for the day. The next day we went to see her she was sitting up in a chair watching the snow flurries, and said she had been sitting there for the past 6 hours waiting on time for us to come and visit. On Thursday we went to see her, and within just a little bit, they said she was doing so well that they were going to release her out of the hospital and to our hotel.

She has truly amazed everyone with how well she has come out of it so far, and how quickly she is recovering. We were all expecting around 2-4 days in NSCCU and 6-7 more in the hospital.  She has to stay in Baltimore until the 1st of March, so they can do a recheck and then take her 70ish staples out, but then she’ll be clear to come home.  So right now her, dad, and Alicia are up there, and mom is doing a little speech and physical therapy to get her back in tip-top shape.

The couple of days that we spent up there before coming home after mom was released to the hotel, was the happiest that I have ever seen her.  She’s so thankful and happy to be alive.

I appreciate all of the well wishes, prayers and thoughts from everyone during this time.  Mark, I really appreciate you and your family—the card and flowers meant so much to us all.  And I can’t thank you enough for first mentioning Johns Hopkins to me when I told you about the situation.  Whether we would have ran across it on our own or not, we’ll never know.  I truly believe going there made all the difference in the world on the outcome.  Thank you my friend.