Surgery Day - Thrombosis Removal

Well world, he made it!

And surgery only took 7 hours this time. It was a much better day having the kids all with me. Here is a picture of them with their Daddy before going into surgery. Jim was in rare form this morning... Remember that I told you that he was pretty groggy last night, well he wasn't this morning! He had all sorts of stuff to tell us about what was going through his head from the night before. I thought I would share some of them with you as I think we could all use a chuckle right now. Here goes ...

First of all, Jim has been giving Carrie Hill a bad time over the years about a red dress that she wore at New Year's about 10 years ago. He told me that he could have sworn that the nurse was wearing that red dress last night. When I told Carrie, she decided that it was time to wiggle back into that dress one more time just for Jimmy when he gets home. He'll definitely hold you to it, Carrie! Next, he moved on to the McStott family. He remembers little Mikey McStott (I'm sure he was thinking of the 7th grade golf team picture) playing ping pong, and Jim was coaching him. Then he said that Dave McStott came in with a bunch of iron to fix his brain (Dave is an ironworker and has built the most wonderful deck and recently a dock, among other fabulous things). We all know that Super Dave can fix just about anything, but this may have been a stretch, even for him. He also asked the doctor to fix his voice last night because he really wants to be a rock star. He told the very young intern, Dr. Wilson, that he would usually ask for a penile implant, but that he decided he wanted to be a singer more. I told them both that I thought that I should get a vote on that matter! The poor doctor just blushed and smiled politely. Jim said that he's been getting a lot of those polite smiles while he's been trying to entertain the hospital staff. He also has decided that if he can't play in the NBA (one of his post recovery goals) that he might write a musical when he recovers. He thought he could set his whole experience to song and dance. He's trying to figure out how to get "Lorelei" into the score for Lori Money -- he's thinking that maybe he can name a nurse that! When the nurses asked him the standard questions of what day it was etc., he answered that the Vice President was Fitzgerald (from the Cardinals) -- he said that he wanted to make sure that everyone knew he was a Cardinals fan before going under the knife! Just before surgery, he asked the surgery team if it would be possible to bring a souvenir cup of whatever they remove from his brain home with him. He thought it would be a good conversation piece. He received more polite smiles. Obviously, he was in good spirits, which helped to set the kids and me at ease ... until we had to kiss him good-bye and the tears started rolling down his cheeks. I can't imagine a tougher fairwell than that.

The waiting room lady took pity on us as she knew we were in for a very long day, so we were given a special conference room to ourselves so that we could sleep -- or at least try. It was very much appreciated. The day was extremely long again but a lot more comfortable. Waiting was not easy, but I also figured that no news was good news.

Here we go with the details of the day. As I said, he made it! Dr. Spetzler was able to remove quite a bit of the thrombosis (clotting), but then Jimmy started to bleed. They had to stuff the area with cotton, which unfortunately will remain in the body and just form scar tissue around (Carrie says that truly makes him a cotton head now!). Therefore, they're not sure how much they were actually able to relieve from the pressure on the brain stem. Only time will tell whether his symptoms improve or not. That was disappointing news, but we knew of the risks and are just glad that he seems to have made it through so far without further apparent damage. We will be optimistic for now that he may feel a little better after he heals up. Either way, this was just designed to buy us some time and to try to make him more comfortable, not to permanently fix anything. Dr. Spetzler, along with Dr. Fiorella, still thinks that the pipeline I discussed yesterday seems to be the best option for Jim. So, we will wait to see the outcome of the patient who is having the pipeline surgery on Monday (please pray for this man), and then start the approval process, if all goes well. There is no guarantee that we will get approval through the FDA, but the success of this man will certainly help our case. If this man's surgery goes well, and we still can't get FDA approval, we would have to consider the option of trying to get it done in Buenos Aires, where they have been doing this same procedure and there's not as much red tape. Not my first choice, but a bridge we will consider crossing if necessary. The next option is to go ahead and revert back to the clip and bypass idea. Dr. Spetzler has decided that he would go back in on the right side and use a larger artery from his arm to create the bypass. He would hope that the larger artery would feed enough blood supply to the brain stem area to allow them to place a full clip below the aneurysm. His first choice is still the pipeline as it is less invasive and would leave the bypass option available as one more future option. We have to hope and pray that Dr. Fiorella can work his magic with the politics and get the approval through in a timely manner. So, it looks like we'll be having another trip back to Phoenix very soon.

We got to go see Jim when they moved him back to ICU this evening. He was sedated, so we did not get any response from him, although the nurse told us that he could probably hear us. They have him restrained, which is probably a good idea as he is on a respirator and has a history of pulling out tubes -- that saves me about $500 a pop! So far, he does not have any drains coming out of his head or his spine, which was a possibility. They are doing another CT angio on him tonight to take a look at things. He is responding when the nurses pull him out of sedation -- he follows them with his eyes and can move his hands and feet on command. He also shakes his head, which tells them that he doesn't like being awake right now. I am glad that he seems comfortable, but I will naturally feel better when we can see more responsiveness ourselves -- maybe tomorrow or the next day. The kids would sure appreciate having him more awake before they leave on Sunday, and we would all love to hear more of his stupid jokes. I could even tolerate arguing with him about his catheter some more. We are all learning great patience!

All in all, it wasn't a great day, but we are SO thankful that Jim survived another surgery. We will continue to test our patience as we await the next step and also help him through this recovery. Please pray for his safe healing as there is still the opportunity for lots of things to go wrong, but each passing day is a step in the right direction. Jim was born with a really stinky arterial system, but he continues to beat the odds, and we are so thankful to have him a part of our lives. We will continue to take any and all measures to keep him around for as long as we can -- we hope God has the same plan in mind.

The love we have received from everyone has been overwhelming and extremely humbling. I don't know what to say except that we are thankful and love you all back! I know I sound like a broken record, but please continue keeping our whole family in your prayers. This is very difficult for all of us, but our love and God will get us through.

Love and God bless!!
Krissy