Surgery Day for Amy

December 11, 2014

What a rotten Christmas present.  Instead of flying down the slopes in Colorado as originally planned, Amy will be recovering from a gigantic incision in her head which was carefully completed at about 5 PM today.  Amy's family brought her to the hospital at around 9:00 am but the actual surgery began around 2:00 and ended at 5:00 pm.  We received regular updates from the nurses about once an hour.  Amy came through the surgery quite well and is now resting and recovering in intensive care with the help of her friend, morphine.

Dr. Surgeon (same guy as last time) came to talk to us after the surgery and told us that he had resected the most suspicious part of the tumor which was about the size of a pea and sent it off to the lab to be analyzed for the stage.  It will take 3 - 7 days for the results to come back. He also said that he resected as much of the tumor that had grown back as he could, but that with these types of tumors, they can never actually resect the entire thing. He did not believe that any of the other cells had changed in form and remained fairly benign.  Once the lab results are back on the suspicious portion, she and her oncologist will make a determination on chemo and radiation. 

Each of us got to see Amy for about 5 minutes in teams of two after the surgery.  She was awake and talking and knew who we were, calling us all by name.  I asked the nurse if she had any pain medication and he checked with her on her pain level.  She said it was a "4" but could they please rub pain medication on her head.  He put morphine in her IV instead, but hey...the first joke 20 minutes after waking up!  Go figure.

Her sister, Aaron will be spending the night in the hospital tonight with her and we will go see her again tomorrow.  Mom Carlson plans to spend a few days at Amy's house helping her recover and Yours Truly gets the big guy Oliver for a few days (Amy's 180 pound great dane).  I will be picking him up tomorrow and be entertained watching him squeeze through my dog door, bake himself in front of the fireplace, take over my entire bed, and shake with fear when my daughter brings over her 12 pound rescue pooch who just wants to play with him.

In all reality...I make light of the situation and try to find the humor Amy craves in every situation, but it was a very emotional day especially for her family.  Tumzilla is an unpleasant, unwanted, and highly unpredictable creature.  But one thing I can say for sure...Amy is not alone in her battle...her family, friends, co-workers, players, old friends, former coaches and teachers have come out of the woodwork to support, love, pray and care for her.  It really shows how many lives she has touched, and how her personality, humor, teaching and coaching ability have made a difference to so many.  For someone who despises attention, prefers the company of dogs to humans and avoids social contact like the plague, it truly amazes me how many people adore her.  So...this blog is for you.  Keep loving her because the positive vibes are reaching her soul and will help her heal more than any medicine ever could.

Stay tuned...update tomorrow....