Update on My Mom

It's been almost three weeks since my mom found out she has a brain tumor and her world was turned upside down.   Since then she has done a lot of research at the Acoustic Neuroma Association's website, explored surgery options with two top brain surgeons in the Kansas City area where she lives, and chose to have Dr. Paul J. Camarata, head of the neurosurgery department at KU Medical Center, perform her surgery.

Her tumor is medium sized and is located deep inside her brain.  It's grown both on the inside and outside of the auditory canal of her left ear and is pressing against her brain stem.  As a result of the removal she will most definitely lose her hearing completely in her left ear, but her right ear's hearing should be fine.  She has only a 10% chance of having the facial nerve on the left side of her face permanently damaged, PRAISE GOD!  So, while she may experience some post-surgery facial paralysis, more than likely it will not be long-term. 

Her surgery is scheduled for Thursday, November 7th at KU Medical Center.  On average, it's about 6 hour surgery with a hospital stay of 5-6 days.  Most people who have this surgery get to feeling relatively back to normal after about 6 weeks as long as there are no complications.  Her brain is going to be jostled around a bit during surgery and she'll be losing her hearing in one ear, so she's been told to expect her equilibrium to be off for a number of days after the surgery.   With this side effect will come lots of nausea and dizziness, as though she's been on a carnival ride that spins around and around and around and around.  Not fun.

 

  For those of you who would like to pray for her, her number one request is that she keeps her eyes on Jesus throughout this entire process.  She's been studying the book of Ephesians for quite some time now and from that has realized that no matter what the outcome she wants HIM to be glorified in her situation.  She does not want this to be all about her.

My prayer requests for her would be that the doctor would have wisdom and precision during the surgery, that there would be no post-surgery complications, and that she would have as quick a recovery as possible.    Childcare for our boys is a detail that we're working out.  We originally thought that Josh would be able to get time off to watch our boys under the Family Medical Leave Act, but recently found out that in-law health issues are not covered under this act.  Please pray that Josh will get the time off without issues and that our boys, especially little Levi, won't miss his mommy too much as she's away taking care of her mommy.  :)

Thank you all for your kind words and prayers!!  

I'll keep the blog posted with any further developments and updates as she has her surgery.