Day of Surgery

We had to wake up early, Scott had to take a Hibicleans shower.  The family arrived, Mom, Kathy, Charlie.  They come to take him to surgery around 0730.  I went with him down to surgery waiting and got to meet the anesthesiologist.  I have underwear older than him.  Dr. Desaloms came in to meet and greet.  He marked the right side of Scott's skull.  Look at all that hair.  The time came that I had to leave. He was so scared, so was I.  I kissed him and tried to find my way back up stairs.  I ran into Jon Mark from church and brought him back to the room everyone was waiting in.  We took all of our bags to my car because Scott would be coming out to ICU after surgery.  We went to have breakfast and wait.  Sat for a little while in the lobby and then made our way back to surgery waiting.  Sometime around 1ish, we were called into the consultation room, surgery was over and Dr. Desaloms will tell us how it went.  He came in and all of us were there.  Surgery went as well as it could.  Scott in recovery.  Then he starts to describe what he removed from my sweetheart.  As I am sitting there listening, it's like a curtain starts to lift.  He's telling me Scott has cancer, a stage 4 cancer.  It's called Glioblastoma Multiforme, it's malignant.  I know he could see it in my eyes because I could certainly feel the curtain rise as I viewed something I didn't want to see.  My husband has cancer......Kathy grabbed my hand.  Dr. Desaloms said he wouldn't be 100% sure until he got the pathology.  He left and I fell apart.  I just knew he wouldn't want to do the whole cancer thing after watching his father do it.  After I composed myself, we left the room and went to get lunch.  How can I eat?  Oh yeah, food is comfort.
Finally, they get him a room assignment in ICU.  Bro. Johnson from church came to be with us.  We got to go in and see Scott in ICU.  Me first, of course.  He is alive.  Big ole bandage on his head.  We all got to talk to him for a few minutes.  Bro. Johnson prayed with us and made Scott feel good.
Charlie helped me get my things to my room on the 7th floor.  It was great, just to rest.  Visitation was over in ICU so I got to rest.  I fell asleep for a little while.  This was only the beginning of the rest of our lives.

2nd insight

I sat in ICU waiting on my sweetie to come back from his stress test.  Listening to Josh Groban, tears flowing.  Dr. Desaloms and Cheryl come in to talk to me.  He is our neurosurgeon.  Our what?  This can't be happening.  He exuded such confidence and I was put at ease.  He assured me that Scott was going to come through surgery just fine.  This was Friday and he was going to wait until Monday to remove the tumor, keep him on steroids to help decrease swelling in his brain.  After visiting with me for a while, he said he had to go take another tumor out.  He said he does so many every day.  I knew we had the right surgeon.  After googling him, I discovered we had one of the best in the country.
I don't remember too much about each moment.  I do know because of the steriods, Scott had to pee every single hour, on the hour, without fail.  We were both exhausted.  This went on all day and all night, me helping him up and using the urinal.  Scott was moved right after stress test to a step down unit so I could stay in the room with him overnight.  I slept on absolutely the most uncomfortable fold out couch.  The second night, I had to pile pillows and lay on them to get any sleep.  Mom brought me a body pillow and that helped.  I wouldn't trade those days with my sweetie, he was so scared.  I had to call everyone but I'm sure the hardest is calling his mom.  There can't be anything like telling someone their baby has a brain tumor.  Please don't make me do that again.  She took it really well but I know how I would feel.  That was  a long weekend.  We had a visitation Sunday, Mom, the boys, Kathy and her crew.  Scott got tired and broke down a little when they were leaving.  I think it scared the boys, at least Dalton.  I took a picture of him sleeping on that last night of our pre-cancer lives.

Look, he even has hair.  The sweetest man in the world.  How can this happen to us?  What did we do?

Starting with September Part one

September 2010, my sweetie, Scott started feeling a little weird.  Just tired and just not right.  He didn't go to work after Labor Day.  Just kept calling in.  He had to drive too far into Irving for me to feel comfortable with him driving.  His left arm started getting a little weak.  He had a doctor's appointment with Dr. Truly.  Dr. Truly pulled on his huge arms and the right one held strong, the left one easily pulled down.  He sent us to see Dr. Conway, actually we saw his NP, Cate Fuqua.  She seemed to think he had a nerve issue so she ordered MRI of cspine and lt shoulder.  Showed nothing and Scott's arm just kept getting more weak.  Dr. Conway performed an EMG and said all his nerves were connecting well with his muscles, so then he ordered an MRI of the head.  Scott got gradually worse and his left leg was being affected, also.  The morning of September 23, Scott complained of seeing spots when he woke up and I told him I really thought he should go to the ER.  He said he wanted to wait and see how the day went.  By noon, he called me and said he was ready to go to ER.  I came home, got him dressed and took him into TMC ER.  I said stroke and gave them the symptoms and they started taking action.  1st up was CT Scan, which was all we needed.  Dr. Lindsay came into the trauma room and just had that look on his face.  My first thought was that he had a stroke, which would have been okay.  Instead, Dr. Lindsay said he had a brain mass.  I looked over at Scott and said, "It's like you willed it there."  Because he always was saying he had a tumor and I would always say no.  Well, here it is.  Scott was flown by helicopter to Presbyterian in Dallas.  I videoed him being flown away from me.  I went home, the boys there waiting on me.  I tearfully had to tell them about Scott and that they would have to stay with Grandmother for a while.  I packed whatever made sense at the time and took them to Mom.  I had to drive to Dallas by myself with all kinds of thoughts rolling through my head and feeling like I was in a daze.  I made it there and to the ER where he was about 1030pm.  We sat in that room until around 1 or 130 am, when a room opened up in ICU because his blood pressure was through the roof.  When they got him to the room, I was told I could stay until he was comfortable and then I had to leave....at 2 am.  I had to find a hotel in Dallas at 2am.  I was so exhausted and had to be up and back at the hospital by 8, that's not much sleep with all I had on my mind.