I'm the Brains of this Operation

From Greg:

It has now been 36 days since the craziness began and 31 since my surgery. I am still in Utah with my family and we'll be here for about another week. It has been very helpful to be with family while getting back to normal. At the same we are excited to get back to Kirksville to keep moving on with school and our lives there

I feel just as normal as I ever have, except my energy is still trying to come back. I'm up to about 10 minutes on a basketball court now, so I'm making progress! The only lingering thing is the numbness in my lower lip. As long as I am not too tired, it's fine, but when I get tired it becomes more noticeable. By noticeable I mean my s's slur a bit and food tries too make an escape when I eat. I get a kick out of it.

The real reason I am blogging now is to make an attempt at thanking. I'm no poet so this will not be what I would like it to be.

Thank you to those who helped me out while I was in the ER. The nurses (and nursing student), doctors, rad-tech, and EMT's were all really awesome. In a pretty scary moment for me, they were not just professional, but compassionate and comforting. Thanks to my hometeachers, bishop and those others who tried to get in to check on me, your efforts and service then are still helping us. Thanks to all those who made it possible for Angel to get to me since I had the car and the boys were in bed. Thanks to those who watched our boys that night, the next morning and brought them to us in Columbia the next day.

Thank you to the amazing doctors, residents, techs and nurses in Columbia. I am sure we could not have had better treatment or competent care. I gained a new hero there, a resident that epitomizes the type of doctor I want to be.

Thank you to the many people that undertook to 90+ mile trip to come down from KVille to check up on my family and me. There have got to be studies out there that prove visitors make patients heal faster.
Thank you to the ATSU-KCOM representatives that also came down after my surgery (we're talking hours, not days too) to offer their support.
Thank you to those who so generously donated to us, and those who arranged for that to be possible. I was and still am completely overwhelmed by the kindness of friends, family classmates, and complete strangers. When you watch the news you're convinced the world is going to end soon, but my family and I have seen a little bit of how much good is all around us.
Very importantly, thank you to all those who supported my wife, kids and relatives during the last few weeks. My mind was pretty calm knowing that my family was taken care of when I could be there.
I am sorry I have had to speak in generalities, but there have been so many people that fit every category.

But more specifically and importantly, Thank You to Angel. There is now way I would have made it through without her, my best caretaker.

-Greg

I'm the Brains of this Operation

From Greg:

It has now been 36 days since the craziness began and 31 since my surgery. I am still in Utah with my family and we'll be here for about another week. It has been very helpful to be with family while getting back to normal. At the same we are excited to get back to Kirksville to keep moving on with school and our lives there

I feel just as normal as I ever have, except my energy is still trying to come back. I'm up to about 10 minutes on a basketball court now, so I'm making progress! The only lingering thing is the numbness in my lower lip. As long as I am not too tired, it's fine, but when I get tired it becomes more noticeable. By noticeable I mean my s's slur a bit and food tries too make an escape when I eat. I get a kick out of it.

The real reason I am blogging now is to make an attempt at thanking. I'm no poet so this will not be what I would like it to be.

Thank you to those who helped me out while I was in the ER. The nurses (and nursing student), doctors, rad-tech, and EMT's were all really awesome. In a pretty scary moment for me, they were not just professional, but compassionate and comforting. Thanks to my hometeachers, bishop and those others who tried to get in to check on me, your efforts and service then are still helping us. Thanks to all those who made it possible for Angel to get to me since I had the car and the boys were in bed. Thanks to those who watched our boys that night, the next morning and brought them to us in Columbia the next day.

Thank you to the amazing doctors, residents, techs and nurses in Columbia. I am sure we could not have had better treatment or competent care. I gained a new hero there, a resident that epitomizes the type of doctor I want to be.

Thank you to the many people that undertook to 90+ mile trip to come down from KVille to check up on my family and me. There have got to be studies out there that prove visitors make patients heal faster.
Thank you to the ATSU-KCOM representatives that also came down after my surgery (we're talking hours, not days too) to offer their support.
Thank you to those who so generously donated to us, and those who arranged for that to be possible. I was and still am completely overwhelmed by the kindness of friends, family classmates, and complete strangers. When you watch the news you're convinced the world is going to end soon, but my family and I have seen a little bit of how much good is all around us.
Very importantly, thank you to all those who supported my wife, kids and relatives during the last few weeks. My mind was pretty calm knowing that my family was taken care of when I could be there.
I am sorry I have had to speak in generalities, but there have been so many people that fit every category.

But more specifically and importantly, Thank You to Angel. There is now way I would have made it through without her, my best caretaker.

-Greg

Final Pathology in....

And we are SOOOO happy! :)

Grade 2 Oligodendroglioma

Which to the non-neuro specialists like me, means... NO Chemo, NO Radiation and time to get Greg better!

We have truly seen miracles happen daily in the last few weeks and feel so blessed. Greg will have an MRI in July to be the baseline to go from for future MRI's and monitoring.

I will get more detailed and informative in the next day or two. But for now, I am going to bed grateful for such good news and for all the prayers and faith that made it possible.

The worst night of my life, but the sun dawned bright today!

Starting last Saturday night the pain meds were making Greg so nauseous that he couldn't sleep or eat. So Monday(Memorial Day) the on call doc had Greg try going to just Tylanol and not taking the pain meds. But by Monday night the pain had got so bad on just Tylanol that he tried taking the Vicodin. Then the nausea got so bad that he was basically puking his guts out. I called the hospital to talk to the on call neuro surgeon. To may HUGE relief it was Dr. Muzinich. Greg now swears we are naming our next child after him, boy or girl. Dr. Muzinich was our favorite Neuro Surgeon Resident during our stay at the hospital, so his voice was very calming. He asked a lot of questions because he was worried at first that it could be swelling inside Greg's brain, which as he would put it "would be really bad." But after talking to Greg and me he felt it was the vicodin ('devil drug' as we now call it) eating up Greg's stomach. So he told Greg not to take any more and he would write Greg a prescription for Percocet. The bad thing about narcotic pain meds is the doctor can't call in a prescription, you have to meet with the doc and get a had written prescription. At this point Greg was feeling a lot better after all the puking. Dr. Muzinich didn't want Greg to have to pay for an ER visit (which would have been the only way to get any narcotic pain meds in Kirksville at 12:30 in the morning) so he said we could just come pick up the prescription in the morning (or as soon as we wanted) in Columbia. Greg was feeling good so he told Dr. Muzinich that we would come in the morning. After he hung up the phone I looked at him and asked if he wanted to really wait until the pain got horrible again. It didn't take him a second to change his mind and so at 1am we got in the car (with my mom, she wouldn't let us go alone) and headed the 1 1/2 hours to Columbia. By the time we got to Columbia, Greg was in a lot of pain, 1-10 he said his pain was 6 or 7. We got to the hospital, got the prescription and I felt much better after talking to Dr. Muzinich. We found a 24 hr Walgreens pharmacy in Columbia and got his medicine. But because he was in so much pain, the medicine took a while to set in. The 1 1/2 hour drive home was miserable for him and he felt like his head was getting shaken everywhere. We got home and he said his pain was at least a 9, the worst pain he has ever felt in his life. It broke my heart to see him actually crying from pain and feeling helpless. Again I have to tell you how much I hate Vicodin. But we laid down and after 20-30 minutes he fell asleep. About 5am at this point.

I set my alarm to make sure we gave him his medicine on time at 7am. And when the alarm went off and I woke Greg up, it was hard for him to hold back the tears of joy and relief as he told me, "I don't hurt and I don't feel sick." We both cried for joy that life was looking so much better. And he has been doing so much better all day today, actually sleeping and able to eat!!

I hope I never have to go through another night like that ever again in my life and see someone I love so much miserable and in so much pain. But today the sun shown bright and we are back on the road to recovery. Tomorrow we go to Columbia again to see the surgeon that did Greg's surgery and get the final pathology. So I better go to bed, but I will try to update tomorrow.

The Road to Recovery.

I can't count the number of miracles we have seen in the past 2 weeks. I never thought I would be so grateful for brain surgery. But because of the brain surgery, the outlook for Greg is so bright. We meet with the doctor to get the final pathology results on Wednesday. But from everything they know so far, the tumor is slow growing so they don't want to do chemo, and they feel like they could remove enough of it so that they don't want to do radiation now. So his job now is to get feeling better! :)

Greg is glad to be home, but is still really tired and has good days and bad days. But there isn't a day that goes by now that I am not overwhelmed with emotion because I get to have him to take care of. Life is so short and I have learned that you just never know what is around the corner. So live every day so that the people you love will know how much you care about them and you have no regrets. And when the hard times come, cause they always do in life, the love you have built up will give you the strength to weather them well. My one request tonight is that you give your sweetheart a hug and kiss and tell them how much you love them!

WE ARE HOME!!!!

I just wanted to let everyone know that we are home. Greg is such a great patient, the doctor released him yesterday afternoon. We got him home and it was so nice to sleep in our own bed. He is still really tired. And has to take things slow, but is on the way to recovery. I will do a more detailed post later when I have more time.

Just a quick update...

Sorry I haven't posted more. I heard what I wanted to hear from the doctor and I think it was such a relief that the exhaustion finally took over.

My mother-in-law took great notes from all the doctors that I am going to try and get a hold of so I can give everyone more specific information. (I know the fellow med students are curious.)

Greg is doing really well. He spent last night in ICU and they moved him to the regular floor this morning. All his nurses say he is the best patient ever. I tend to agree with them.

The doctor said he will probably be able to go home in the next couple days. I am hoping we will be back at home on Thursday.

The occupational nurse came and Greg was up and walking by himself and passed all the physical and mental tests with flying colors. :)

He was on Morphine for pain yesterday and I don't think he has ever been that talkative. But all the talking and not resting yesterday has caught up to him. He has spent pretty much the whole day today sleeping. So I have limited visiting to short visits with family.

Greg wants everyone to know how much he appreciates the love and support and can't wait to get home and get feeling all the way better.

Heres to a full and speedy recovery. At least as speed as you get when you've had a hole in the head! :)