End of a long day - Dad's doing well

Dear friends and family,

Mike here. Most important stuff first: when we left the hospital, Dad was awake, alert, cracking wise (like usual), not at all in pain, eating well, and trying to make up his mind how quickly he wanted to call a nurse to help him get up out of bed for the first time after surgery (that'll probably be tomorrow morning). He has a very small incision in his forehead. Chances are he'll come home tomorrow, or Thursday at the latest.

We got back home about an hour ago after a long day at the hospital. Dad's surgery, which was originally scheduled for 2:15pm, then moved back to 12:15pm, then back to 10:15am (which meant we all got to the hospital before 8am) was then moved back to 12:15 and actually ended up taking place at about 2:15...as originally scheduled. (But if they hadn't moved it up in the schedule, I'm pretty sure it would have happened very, very late in the day - or not at all today. So thank God for medical professionals who understand how these things work and pulled strings for us.)

The bigger change, as I previously emailed from my phone to this blog, was that the surgery was not, as originally planned, a craniotomy (i.e., an attempt to remove as much of the tumor as possible, with associated risks to Dad's brain functioning), but a relatively simple and quick biopsy, which is required to move forward with the new plan: attacking the tumor with a program of radiation and (possibly) chemotherapy. The neurosurgeon, Dr. Asher, told us after the surgery that he was headed straight down to talk to the oncologist whom he wants to take over Dad's case, to ask him to come talk to us tomorrow about the treatment plan, while Dad's still in the hospital. We don't know for sure if that's going to happen, but Mom, Sean, and I (at least) are planning to get there by 8am tomorrow, hoping to be there when the oncologist arrives. So hopefully we'll know more tomorrow about the plan going forward.

We're grateful to everyone for all your prayers today. Please stay tuned for more info when we have it.

Love,
Tom & Lynne
Mike & Tina
Sean & Anna