They have a new operating room at the Foothills Hospital in Calgary and there are rails located on the ceiling to allow them to bring in a special MRI machine to do MRI's right in the room

For the last surgery they did an MRI on Thursday evening and did the surgery Sat. afternoon.

This time the last MRi I had was from September.  That is when they told me the tumor had grown back.  The MRi told them this.  They could see it and measure it from the MRI picture.  When they had me asleep on the table they did a MRI before the surgery and at least one part way through.

I was not awake to see it but obviously an improvement to the previous method.

The one problem is that they nicked the "plastic" bag that encompasses the brain during the removal.  This Bag keeps the brain surrounded by brain fluid and that keeps the brain working.  You don't want to loose this fluid.  This fluid also runs down to the spinal cord and helps keep that working too.  So what they did was remove some fat from around my belly and used that to patch the "bag".  I asked them why they did not remove more fat but they said that would have increase the cost of the operation.  Funny Doc. 

Then they put in a drain from my spinal cord - called a lumbar drain - and used this drain to prevent a build up pressure in the brain area while the bag healed.  They keep pressure from forming by draining 10 cc of fluid every hour.   

Apparently your brain makes 10 cc of fluid an hour.  So they drained as much as I made to keep pressure off the seal of the bag.  Got it.  This went on for 2 days.  At that time they made me lay on a bed and I was not allowed to get up for the 2 days.  Sitting up or standing up would also increase the pressures and I would have got a terrible headache too.  They kept monitoring my blood electrolytes and my pee to ensure that there was no leak.   

After 2 days trying to eat laying on a bed they let me sit up to see if anything happened to the seal.  They clamped off the drain but did not remove it yet just in case.  The lumbar drain did not hurt and if they had not told me it was there I would not have known. 

Sat up and all appears fine.  Now I could begin walking and I got to eat sitting up - yeah!  

They finally released me Monday evening and I have been getting stronger since.  Going to be at least a month before I'm back to a good level but I can at least type on the computer.

 

The drive home made me sick.  Guess your body does not like all the bouncing around during rush hour traffic.  Wed.  I was feeling bad and considered calling the doc.  Then Thursday I had the best day yet.  So I think all is going well.