Hello dear family & friends,
On Wednesday around 10am Stephen began the process of preparing for surgery. He was prepped for and received an angiogram in the afternoon. During that procedure they were able to stop blood flow to various parts of the tumor in advance of the removal. Stephen remained in the hospital while his artery healed and to be prepped for the next day.
Thursday morning started early with surgery prep around 6 am. Close to 7am they took him back to begin but before they took him we spoke with Dr. Dunn. One thing that he communicated was that they were going to take as long as they needed and take their time to do a thorough job. Even though this meant surgery could go much longer than the original 6 hour time frame it did give a sense of further reassurance that he was taking great care with Stephen.
Throughout the day I received calls almost every hour with updates on what was happening and how he was doing. At about 8:30am is when they called and said they were about to make the first incision and almost an hour later is when Dr. Dunn started to work to remove the tumor under the microscope. I did not fully understand at the time exactly how the surgery was done but had the chance to ask more later on. What I found out is that the surgeon was standing and looking straight ahead into a microscope where he was able to see the magnification of what he was doing with his hands and his instruments. These instruments have extremely fine or minuscule heads for working microscopically. This is the method that was used for the removal with Dr. Dunn working in this way for over 9 hours — which makes me marvel at the concentration and patience it must take to do what he does. During this time he was working around tiny nerves that would control Stephen’s left eye movements. He said that all the nerves were worked around and preserved. He successfully entered part of Stephens sinus as well to remove some fragments that were in that location. The consistency of the tumor was more firm than they had imagined and that did contribute to the surgery taking longer. In all, Stephen was in surgery for close to 10 hours.
In the end, Dr. Dunn believes he removed 99.999% of the tumor. After the surgery Stephen was taken for a new MRI for them to asses how well it actually went or if anything was missed. The entire neurology team were thrilled to see the results and called it a huge success!
Today (Friday) Stephen has mostly been asleep and recovering. He fought through lots of nausea Thursday night post surgery but has been improving throughout the day today with that. He has been able to eat some food and has gotten up to go to the bathroom. The left side of his head and face is very swollen and his left eye is swollen shut. We have been warned that he may suffer from double vision for some time and that his pupil will be dilated on the left side as well. He will also have headaches and possibly some odd sensations for a time.
Fragments of the tumor were sent to pathology and we will hear a full report at Stephen’s post op appointment in 2 weeks.
All in all we are extremely grateful and thanking God for so many answered prayers. Thank you for all your prayer, love and support through this entire journey. Even though this road has been so difficult we have felt His presence with us and his peace in our hearts over and over again.
Some prayer requests for the next few days:
Stephen will potentially be discharged tomorrow morning. Please pray home can be a restful and comforting place for him. That we will know how to care for him and that he will feel safe.
Pray for our family to be protected from illness (especially the boys) while Stephen is recovering.
Pray for his sight to return to normal and for continued complete restoration to complete health
Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts! We love you all. In Christ,
Laura (& Stephen)
Praise GOD! PRAISE GOD!!!! PRAYING PRAYING!!!!!!
Praise God. He is good!!!!! Will continue to keep all of you in my prayers. Sounds like an amazing doctor. Stephen is blessed to be in his care