Less then 12 hours after surgery and he is dressed and ready to head down to cafeteria. He is convinced he will beat his record time of discharge after his second brain surgery. Crazy! But amazing. David did amazing during surgery yesterday. Talking right after :) In great spirits as always.
When the doctor came in at the end of surgery yesterday to talk to us before David woke up, we received some news that blew us away. This past 6 weeks have been wonderful with the hope that this spot was radiation necrosis, a cause from radiation. But, when the doctor came in yesterday , we got that little reminder again that this is Brain Cancer and it is still very a part of our lives. The spot that we believed and you all prayed so boldly for in fact is a tumor. In just the last 6 weeks it had grown slightly. I think I went numb at this point, but with David's family , friends and my close friends Breck and Amanda they were able to retain all the information for me that we would later discuss with David and the doctor.
We had a great talk this am with the doctor. Where the tumor recurred was in same area, frontal lobe. The doctor was able to not ice cream scoop it out but was aggressive and removed it to the studs . Amen. I only wish I could show the picture of the scan. Pretty amazing! David's taking the news well. We didn't expect reoccurrence this soon. But, continue to have hope we're done for a long time. Pathology will take a few days to come back but we are still praying this did not come back grade 4 glioma but a grade 3.
I want to thank everyone for praying and ask you to not be discouraged or stop your prayers. This is not over. Faith is not only when good things happen. Faith is becoming completely dependent on God. Trust me , this sucks. And I want all to know we are normal. We are very positive individuals but we are normal. And we have bad days. And I know in the last 12 hours I have felt so many emotions. But, I was also reminded that Jesus felt every human emotion we feel when he was on this earth. That I need to allow myself to feel those emotions. And that there was a time when even Jesus didn't feel like praying. I am not angry nor is David. We simply have just been reminded that God is in complete control. That we need to continue to seek him for the strength we so desperately need. Because of your prayers , I want you all to know we had the best past 6 weeks. I can't imagine if this past 6 weeks we thought it was a tumor? Because we had hope we lived life. And now we received the news we received and the best part , it's out:) brain cancer is not curable but manageable! So for now, we are back in control of it...NOT CANCER IN CONTROL! What is the next step??? We fight it with new chemo, we live, we pray, we have bad days and good . Praise GOD, with two brain surgerys David has NO COMPLICATIONS, NO MEMORY LOST, NO SPEACH PROBLEMS, NOTHING! TRULY A BLESSING! He is actual sharper then ever:) I think about Dr Roa and what is job entails as a neuro surgeon. He deals with this every day and how it must wear on him. I could tell how hard it was for him to tell us, as we have become so close to him. Pray for his knowledge and expertise to always be advancing and his heart to be protected as he deals with so many cases like ours. David should be able to leave the hospital friday a.m. and will be off a few months for recovery. We ask you to say...this sucks with us, but to also continue to hold the faith we have and to pray for the strength, peace and comfort that we can only recieve from God. We ask for more good days and we ask for prayer that we always hold truth to our faith and dependence on it.
With lots of love! Dana & David
