Kristy's Story...Hospital Stay After Surgery

Kristy and Michael have met with Dr. Friedman this morning. Dr. Friedman wants Michael to stay close to the hospital until next Wednesday. Michael is doing good but he wants the pathology report back on the tumor he removed before they return home. Depending on the pathology report there may be other treatments needed, such as chemo. He said Michael will be able to leave the hospital and check into a hotel until he is released. That will be later today or tomorrow.

Michael is walking but very slowly. He will still need a lot of help after leaving the hospital. He is having headaches but thinks it is from the surgery, not the tumor. They have him on some pretty strong pain medicine right now. He has been unable to sleep since the surgery, nurses in and out at all hours, so maybe a quiet hotel room will help.

Kristy and Michael are still very nervous about this whole ordeal. They were hoping for a definite answer to the question "Is the tumor and cancer gone?" Because of the possibility of micro cancer cells they don't have the answer they want to hear. The doctor is doing another MRI as I write this to see if anything shows up.

I will update this story again soon.

Kristy's Story...Day After Surgery

Michael is doing great and already messing with the nurses. He feels better than he has in some time now and wants to get out of bed and move around. He will be released from ICU soon and put in a private room. Dr. Friedman has stopped by briefly to check on him but has not sat down to talk with him and Kristy yet. They really like Dr. Friedman, not only is he a great surgeon but a super nice man.

Kristy will update me after they talk with the doctor more.

Kristy's Story...Surgery is Over

This has been a very long day for Michael and Kristy. Surgery was originally set for 10:00 a.m., then it was changed to 12:30, but the doctor came in a little later and said the tumor has grown even more since he checked it three weeks ago. So the surgery ended up not starting until 3:30. It lasted only three hours and Kristy is still waiting to see Michael. He was given a strong pain killer and they want him to take his time waking up. It is now 9:30 in North Carolina.

Kristy and Michael said Dr. Friedman has been wonderful and very supportive. He says he is almost positive he got all of the tumor but there could be some micro cells. He will give them more information tomorrow when Michael is awake. Then I will pass the information on to all of you.

Kristy's Story...Night Before Surgery

Kristy and Michael are at Duke Hospital tonight. Michael had his pre-op test done, including another MRI, and he is ready for surgery tomorrow. His surgery is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Eastern time.

I keep the boys on their regular schedules while mom and dad are gone. And they have busy schedules! One gets dropped off at school at 7:15, the other at 8:15, and the schools are about a half hour apart. Then the oldest gets picked up at 2:15 and an hour later I pick up the youngest. They have a couple hours to eat and do homework then we go to football or baseball practice or a football or baseball game. We get back home around 8:30, one hits the showers then the other the tub, they talk with mom and dad, then off to bed around 9:30. Up at 6:00 a.m. and start all over again!

So sometime tomorrow, as soon as I know something and have the time to write, I will let everyone know how the surgery went.

Kristy's Story...Traveling to Duke Hospital

Hi,

My name is Pam and I am Kristy's mom. Kristy and Michael, along with Michaels' parents, are now at the St. Louis airport. Their flight to Raleigh/Durham departs at 6:30 and arrives in North Carolina around 9:30 Eastern time, 8:30 p.m. Central time. They dropped their boys off here at 4:00 before leaving. I spoil them a little while mom and dad are gone, no I try to spoil them all the time. The past two years has been especially hard on the twelve year old. He is old enough to understand what is going on while the 5 year old just knows dad has to see the doctor again. Right now they are playing Play Station and looking forward to ice cream soon. They really miss mom and dad and worry about their dad.


Tomorrow Michael will check in at Duke Hospital for pre-op tests. Kristy won't leave him the whole time he is in the hospital. He just scoots over in the bed and she stays right next to him. Kristy's sister Stacey will join them tomorrow night. She wants to be there for Kristy during Michaels' surgery Wednesday.

Micheal has been very sick the past couple days. His dizziness has been worse and he has been stumbling a lot. His coordination has been really bad. Last night he was up most of the night sick to his stomach. Once his tumor starts to grow his symptoms rapidly increase. We all hope the symptoms will disappear after the surgery.


If there is anything Kristy wants me to say tomorrow I will post it for her.

Kristy's Story...Thank You

To everyone who has donated and left comments I thank you. I do plan on contacting the people who have left comments that have a similar problem as we are facing. But we need to get through the surgery Wednesday first. And come back home to our boys.

While we are gone next week I may have my mom post some updates on how the surgery went. After we are back and settled back in I will give more details on how things went. Thanks again for all the support and I will be contacting some of you in the near future.

Kristy’s Story…Living a Nightmare

Our 12 year old rides four wheelers and dirt bikes. Last weekend we were watching our son ride his dirt bike out our window. The bike died on him and we watched as he tried to kick start it himself. My husband looked at me and said “If I die then how would you be able to start it back up for him.” I just said “Honey everything is going to be ok.”  That broke my heart so much. I just love and need him so much. He doesn’t say things like that often but the worry about another surgery is getting to him. He is afraid of not knowing his family when he wakes up.

It is like we have been living a horrible nightmare for the past two years. There has not been a day I don’t worry about Michael. I am a mail carrier and while delivering the mail I think about him and cry. The surgery at Duke next week has to help…we need to wake up from this nightmare.

Kristy’s Story…Most Wonderful Man

My husband is the most caring, funny, smart, sweet, brave, and easy to get along with man in the world.  He has also been the greatest husband and father in the world. If you were broke down on the side of the road he would be the first to stop and help. He holds the door open for everyone and always says yes mam or sir. He volunteers to help others no matter his own pain and worries. He is just wonderful. When he did have his job before the brain tumor the guys would always want Michael to go out after work and have a beer. But he never did, he wanted to come straight home to his family. He gets our kids to their activities, always early never late, and teaches our boys great lessons in life on how to grow up to be good men. I could write a book on how wonderful he is. I think he is the perfect man.

Kristy's Story...Physical Problems from Brain Tumors

One of Michael's biggest worries is not being able to play with and teach his boys. He worries he won't be able to do the things his boys love to do. They love to ride four-wheelers, dirt bikes, play baseball, football, and anything that keeps them active.  He was lucky after the first surgery to not have any side effects from the surgery. As I stated before the second surgery left him with a shaky left hand. He can't grasp anything with his left hand now. But that he considers minor compared to what could have been affected. 


Since the tumor has recently started to grow again he is having coordination problems. He gets dizzy and can't make his motions do as his brain wants them to do. Here is an example: Michael is one of the coaches for our 12 year olds baseball team. At our sons last ball game he was throwing the ball up in the air and hitting it to the kids. But he was having trouble coordinating the ball to the bat, this had not happened before. Another coach noticed and helped him out by taking over for him. He is hoping that his next surgery will correct this and not make it worse.


One week from today is his surgery date...I will keep everyone updated.

Kristy’s Story…Living with Headaches

Michael has lived with terrible headaches for over two years now, but you never hear him complain. He just sucks it up and goes on. He has been on 750 mg of Vicodin for a long time but that didn’t help much. So he had been taking 2 at a time just to help his headache for about an hour or two. Now his doctor at Duke put Michael on Oxycodone and a steroid to reduce swelling. But even with this stronger medicine he is still having headaches only now he is not getting all the Tylenol.  Apparently Vicodin has Tylenol and too much Tylenol can cause headaches. Michael has always been fine except for the bad headaches and the shaky left hand but lately he is experiencing coordination problems and dizziness.

I will tell you more about this tomorrow.

Kristy's Story...A Great Friend

I was home Saturday and Michael was out helping a friend, like he always does, when another friend came by. He left a box and told me to have Michael open it when he came home. When Michael came home and opened it there was an old bible inside. The bible had been passed down in the friends family for over 150 years. In it the friend had wrote “Thank you Lord for such a great person and great friend, give this courageous man the strength he needs.”  Makes me cry just writing this. We are so lucky to have friends and family that also love Michael.

 

I will continue to share other information and our trip to Duke Hospital for Michael’s next surgery.