Surgery Procedure
Alot of people have been asking how the actual surgery was performed – although I do not know a lot of the technical words they used (it is a lot to absorb) I can explain the basic technique, leaving out the gory stuff. They of course began by the obvious sedation with 3 IV lines, they marked the right side of her head with an M (Andrea had requested an S) so not to operate on the wrong side. They made a cut (beginning at 9:20 am) starting at the middle of her head, about where a center part of your hair would be and cut along the hair line in a C shape to the bottom front of her ear lobe. They began peeling the layers, cutting through the nerves, muscles, etc. as they went. When the skull was exposed they made several pilot holes in the temperal area of her skull so they could use a saw to cut an egg shaped piece of skull away to get at the interior of the head. Moving the brain, arteries, etc. out of the way they were able to see the surprise that it was inside the cavernous sinus, carefully opening the cavernous sinus they then got the second surprise it was a schwannoma. So the actual work began and the doc said it came out in tiny pieces. He was very careful to work around the artery to avoid paralyzing her and to preserve the optical nerves involved. He said he had to leave some of the tumor on the artery and the 6th optical nerve that will be radiated in several months. This kind of tumor loves nerves and it actually began inside her sixth optical nerve, that is why she may end up with some sight problems in the right eye – too early to tell. As you know he operated all day and began closing around 9:30pm, which took an hour and a half to put everything back and only about 50 stitches. When putting the skull piece back they attached it with titanium plates and screws, which when the swelling goes down in her head he said she will be able to feel the heads of the screws. We have to listen so closely to everything he is saying, I have not asked how large the skull piece was or how many plates or screws – maybe Andrea will ask at our real checkup appt on the 28th of April at 1:45. So hope that helps answer a few questions – In closing it was a long day for everyone. It went kinda like this…We arrived at the hospital at 6:00 am began the check in process – was able to stay with family until about 7:00, then Andrea, Todd and I went into surgery prep where they put her in a beautiful hospital gown, drew blood, started one of three IV’s, gave her happy drugs, introduced us to 1/2 the team and wheeled her away at 7:40am to finish the prep and we joined our family and friends for the long wait. At 9:20am we were told they had begun cutting and every 2 hours after that they updated us telling us everything was fine and the plan was to be done at 5:00pm. At 4:00 pm they told us it would be 6:00pm and continued extended one hour at a time until they told us they would begin to close at 9:30pm which should take 1 1/2 hours and then a one hour MRI and then Todd and I could join Andrea in recovery. Around 11:00pm or so Doc came to us in the waiting room and explained about the two surprises and that everything went well. Family went to there hotels, friends drove all the way home and we waited to be called to recovery. She seemed very alert and does remember us in recovery, we then were put in ICU-1 and I stayed with her while Todd went to Ronald McDonald House around 1:00am. Andrea and I talked until about 4:00am and she finally went to sleep, we sleeped until 6:30 when the docs came in and examined her. I will spare all of the other details of the next days, but they are long and full of docs, pokes, alarms and sleeplessness.