January 11, 2021

This will likely be my last post for a few days, as tomorrow I head into surgery at 5:30am. I anticipate not feeling up to an update tomorrow. Know that I am in great hands and will be well taken care of, please just wish me the best of luck and success!

What a long day today... fMRI scheduled for 8:25am and busy all the way through about 4pm for Neuropsychic evaluation. In between I had a meeting with the the surgeon, which unfortunately did not go nearly as well as I had hoped. It appears that the tumor has grown since December, and he feels that we are dealing with a Glioblastoma, but again only pathology can say for sure. He is also unable to resect the entire tumor due to the depth and position. I know that he will do the best he can, and I have faith that he will give me the best chance at a great future. I also learned that he will be opening quite a large opening for this surgery to access both portions of this tumor...not gonna lie, it's pretty scary. I suppose on the plus side, I will have a rather large scar and quite a story to tell.

I volunteered to have a couple catheters put in place during surgery. These catheters will be used to take samples from the tumors and see how the they "talk" to each other as they are being resected by the surgeon. These will be removed when the surgery is over, and that data will go on to help other people suffering the same condition. I also volunteered to have my DNA and other useful things stored for future research and to answer calls and questions if needed. I felt like...you know I work in a research facility, I would be remiss to not participate in this research to help others. So no matter what, this information will go on to help other people, and I feel really good about that. 

Well, it's an early day tomorrow, I'll see you all on the other side of this surgery!