Kristy's Story...Michael's First Brain Surgery

We got to the hospital that night but the surgeon didn't come in to see us until the next morning.  The Doctor told us that he looked at the MRI and thinks he can remove his tumor but only gave us about a 50% chance of my husband making it through the surgery. He then told us that we could get a second opinion.  We looked at one another and said that is exactly what we wanted to do.

  

We called around and we both agreed he needed to go to Saint Louis University hospital. He was transferred by ambulance to SLU that Saturday. When we arrived at the hospital it was over the weekend so we didn't even meet the surgeon until that Monday morning. Dr. Coppens came into his room and said I can remove this tumor! We were so thrilled to hear that. Surgery was set up for the following day.

The next day his surgery only took 4 hours and when I got to see him afterwards he was fine.  Sitting up and talking. Dr. Coppens talked to us and said that he thinks he got it all and that it was a grade 1 astrocytoma tumor, which was benign.  We were excited and thought we had just beaten the odds. Until four months later when Michael was checked with another MRI. After the MRI we were sent home thinking all was well, except Michael was still getting headaches....to be continued tomorrow