Back to the OR again

Unfortunately the drain didn't turn out to do the trick by itself. Tomorrow Paul has to go back to the OR so that the neurosurgeon can find where the fluid leak is and patch it up. He'll still have the drain in as well the next few days. He's now slated to stay in intensive care for a few more days and probably be in the hospital for another 3-4 days overall. We're working on figuring out the new visiting plan for the Elliotts in light of all this. Bummer.

His spirits have been up and down -- today, as you might guess, is more of a down day. At least tonight he will be allowed to get out of bed so perhaps that will help. Hopefully once he gets out of the OR tomorrow things will start heading in the right direction again.

Love,
Kate

Quick Update

Tomorrow morning Paul is scheduled for an 8 am MRI to see if the draining tube worked. Dr. Zubay will look at the results and let us know if Paul can move to a regular hospital bed (yay!) or ???
As for how Paul is feeling, he is terribly uncomfortable. He is tired of laying on his back in a hospital bed in the ICU. One of his many neighbors moaned and groaned all last night and into the morning. He is sleep-deprived and was given Ambien and Benadryl to help him sleep tonight.
I'll let you know Paul's status by tomorrow evening. Prayers, thoughts and fingers crossed for that regular hospital bed.

Love,
Cheree

All gone, but....

Paul's sister here on update duty tonight. The good news -- the CT and MRI scans showed that Dr. Zubay got out the whole stinking thing, just as he'd thought. Before the surgery he said it was kind of a long shot that he'd get it all. There was talk of maybe needing radiation afterwards to shrink the rest of it (which doesn't mean they think it's cancer, because they don't). Now that the tumor is all gone that's no longer something to worry about. However the scans also showed that there's some fluid building up in the spinal column in his neck that needs to be drained. So tomorrow Paul has to go back to ICU for Dr. Zubay to put a drain in his lower spine in hopes that it can draw off enough spinal fluid to take care of the buildup. It's by no means certain that this will work, so it's possible that the surgeon may have to open up his neck again to get rid of the fluid. Continue to send best wishes, prayers, and crossed fingers (figuratively speaking, please, not literally) that the back drain does the job so that he doesn't need another operation. He's back in intensive care so they can keep a closer eye on things for now.

In other news, the physical therapist came today to make him get out of bed and show him the moves so he can get up by himself. This is an important step towards being able to choose his own Simpsons episodes when he gets back home.

Paul, Cheree, Paul's parents and I send our appreciation for everyone's kindness and caring. We all know what a good guy he is. But seeing all the love and caring and connections on this blog make it clear just how many people have the good fortune to have him in their lives, and just how much they appreciate that. Thanks.

Kate

Exhale

Good morning! This blog brings you good news! Paul's surgery went well, so well that Dr. Zubay was done in less than the 6 hours he originally predicted. :) Dr. Zubay believes, is 99% sure, that he removed the entire tumor. We will know for sure in 24 hours after another MRI and Cat Scan are done. Paul is in ICU and doing well. However, he still has a lot of numbness and discomfort in his hands and feet. This discomfort should pass in the next few days as the swelling in his hands goes down. (This is normal after a surgery like his.) We are still praying that ALL numbness in his body will disappear soon.

Thank you, to all family and friends who have been sending your thoughts, best wishes and prayers our way. Your support during this difficult time has been such a blessing to us.

Love,
Cheree

tomorrow's the big day

We had a meeting with my neurosurgeon yesterday. We found out that the surgery has been moved up to 12:00. This means we'll be checking in at 10 AM. I'm glad it's earlier. Less time sitting around waiting, and everyone won't have to go so late into the night to get the results. We also found that yes, I'll be in a neck brace for a while, but just a regular one (not some big head rigged contraption). So much of what's going to happen during this surgery won't be known until the Dr. is in there digging around. He told us that the point in my spinal cord where the tumor is pushing it is only 1/5th the size of what it should be. There's a possibility that the numbness i have from this will never go away, which of course freaks me out. I'll be losing some neck bone during the procedure.
We just keep hoping that once the pressure is relieved from my spinal cord, that things will start returning to normal. The Dr. says that hopefully me being young will help in that. The time line is a year and a half. If it hasn't gotten better by then, things aren't looking too good. But really, I'm trying to keep positive. Keep strong.
My folks fly in tonight. We'll go out for dinner tonight, and then it's no more eating for me until the surgery, not that I'll have much of an appetite tomorrow anyway.
Thanks to all for the supportive posts, e-mails and cards. They are very much appreciated!

hooray cheree and morgan!

Today Cheree and Morgan completed the grueling La Jolla half marathon in great time. Obstacles overcome include a bum Ipod for Morgan and some steep hills. Chili and I had our own obstacles to overcome as we battled thousands of cars for the 3 or 4 available spots in downtown La Jolla. All ended well as we found a spot in a garage and busted our way to the finish line just in time to see them (yet miss the photo op of them running - whoops, my bad). Cheree's sister Terri met us with her 2 girls and we all headed to a big breakfast at the Eggery in P.B. Chili even got a new toy from the girls. That helped him forget his embarrassment of relieving himself on the La Jolla sidewalk right in the middle of a big crowd earlier.

the final countdown...

5 days until "game day". Cheree and I are just trying to enjoy the days as much as we can by going out and about all over town. Last night we went to a new restaurant/bar downtown that was....ok. My fries were cold but i was way too hungry to give it much thought. Cheree's meal was better. Then we walked around downtown a bit, picked up some gifts for Jeff's birthday (dinner tonight at Vision's downtown) and went to Ghirardelli and shared a Sundae. We didn't talk too much about the surgery. There will be plenty of time for that later.
We got caught in a downpour (by San Diego standards) when walking the 5 or so blocks back to our car. After getting home and going to bed we watched most of our latest Netflick "This film is not yet rated.". It's a documentary about the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and their bizarre methods of rating films. Who knew it was a secret society (the only movie rating association in the world where the members are kept secret) where there are no real guidelines (publicly, anyway) for how the movies are rated? Sex is bad (especially anything "abnormal", violence is fine, big companies hold all the cards. Kinda describes our society for the last say...7 years.
Well, today we're taking Chili to dog beach in Coronado, doing some errands and then hitting downtown again. Thanks for stopping by.

Cat Scan

Today was cat scan day. (Photo is from a previous head cat scan in 1999 by Dr. Frecious). Cat scan was no big deal...IV, stay still, go through the whirring machine, feel yourself get filled with IV fluid, couple more scans and then leave and eat lunch in your car after a 13 hour hunger strike. Leftover pizza never tasted so good.

That's my momma

Leave it to your mother to show you things could be worse. Here's an article my mom sent about a guy in China who let his neck tumor go unchecked a wee bit longer than me.

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=41697&in_page_id=2

thanks to all...

My heartfelt thanks to all well wishing posters, e-mailers and callers. Your love and support does mean a lot to me. It's great to have that feeling of support from family and friends.

So what's new? Not too much. I should have a cat-scan this week sometime. I've lost about 9 pounds during this ordeal, mostly due to stress and discomfort. Cheree is already babying me. She mowed the lawn yesterday (normally my thing) and doesn't think I'm supposed to be lifting heavy things. I told her to use me while she's got me now and save up her strength for when she really needs it. Chili's been a trooper. (Seen here in his quiet and innocent baby days) He thinks I'm in plenty good shape to wrestle, go on walks and constantly attend to his every need (Right now he's whining to go outside even though he just got a nice long walk at 8:00 - he still doesn't understand the whole "home office" concept).

Sleeping has become difficult lately. Last night I was up until about 2:00 with a million things racing through my mind. Lucky for me, reading has always made me tired, so after reading a couple chapters in a book about the ancient Greek Olympics I was on my way out.

The whole Elliott clan will be making trips down here, in stages. It looks like Dr. Kate will be here first, and then Pops and finally Mom to help when Cheree goes back to work after taking a week off.
That's it for now...back to work. Thanks for checking in!

How it came to this

I've been having neck pains since the early 2000's. At first it was very rare, and when I would get up and move they'd go away. Over time they came back more and more often and got more and more bothersome. I saw a couple doctors over a couple of years who were convinced I had a neck sprain that just needed heat and rest. I did as they said, but it didn't help. X-Rays didn't see anything (my joke to Cheree was that I needed a neck transplant). It got to the point where it started interfering with my comfort in everyday activities like work, gym, baseball and even just walking around. I went to 4 massage therapy sessions that did seem to make it feel better, but the cost of those sessions adds up quickly - and it wasn't really fixing the problem.

Late last year I started seeing a chiro-practor who took some pretty blurry X-Rays and told me it was my alignment or something that was out of whack and that a steady diet of "neck adjustments" would get me back in shape. Those bone popping experiences did give me some stories to tell, but not much relief.

In December I started noticing that my hands were feeling water temperatures differently than the rest of my body. The chiro didn't think much of it "All part of the process." I never did ask him if he had seen the Simpsons Chiro episode "Forget it Homer, it's Chiro-town."
Anyways, I stopped seeing him soon after that. In March I started noticing numbness in my hands. This freaked me out and lead to a visit to the Dr, who performed an EKG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrocardiogram and blood tests which didn't find anything wrong and thus lead to a referral to an Ortho who decided I have Carpal Tunnell Syndrome. I think I'm a victim of my profession with the medical world. Anytime anyone with a medical degree hears I work on computers, my work gets blamed for what ails me.

I got fitted for a pair of Carpal Tunnel braces and a couple prescriptions and was told to check back in a month. After about a week and feeling numbness spread to my feet, stomach and back I asked for a recommendation to a neurologist. The neurologist performed an EMG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromyography which was both unpleasant and uninformative. It did rule out Carpal Tunnell, but that was the end of it's help. So that lead to yesterday's MRI's (one for the brain and one for the neck) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRI. By this time I was freaked out. I was sure I had MS (my sister the Dr. told me it's bad to plug in your symptoms online, the worst stuff always comes back) and was just waiting to hear it from the Dr. My neurologist called me in the afternoon and told me that my neck MRI showed a tumor up against my spinal cord. Yes, hearing about your spinal cord is scary, but still a relief from hearing about worse conditions. My neurologist got me an appointment this morning with his top choice for neurosurgeon. Cheree and I went in for the appointment and were told that yes, the tumor is pushing my spinal cord and it needs to come out. They're almost positive it's benign. We'll know for sure after the surgery. The surgery will be pretty intense. Ir will be about 6 hours. It will involve a blood transfusion (thank you whoever is the donator). Hopefully they'll finish everything in 1 shot. They might have to do some reconstruction for bone that has been eroded by the tumor. The way it's been explained to me, I'll feel like I got kicked in the back of the head by a mule. I'll be in Intensive Care for 3-5 days and then home in bed for a couple weeks and then we'll see how I recover. I'll be in a neck brace for a while.

I feel bad Cheree. Once again she'll have to drop me off at the hospital and spend hours worrying about me. She'll have to help me after I get home for a while. She'll have to put up with Angry Paul when I'm hurting and no matter what Simpsons episode she puts on for me, it won't be the right one.

So now I'll be on roids (new prescription) for a couple weeks until my surgery, it's a shame I won't be playing ball - I haven't knocked a dinger in a while.

The first post

"First he went in for a hernia (at 21 years old) in 1995, then he was back in 1999 for his blown out knee ACL repair, then in 2003 he had the appendectomy....now it's 2007 and it's "Back...to the OR".

So yeah, I'll be heading back in again, this time it's a neck tumor. I've suddenly realized I've got a nasty 4 year pattern of going to the Operating Room (every 4 years, just like the Olympics...except no one wants to compete in this event). I shudder to think of what 2011 has in store for me.

The purpose of this blog is to inform the general adoring public of what's going on. I'll update it until Surgery Day (tentatively scheduled for April 26th, 2007). After that, I'm hoping Cheree will pitch in and post here and brag about milestone accomplishments like getting up and walking to the fridge all by myself. Cheree hates typing, so this is a lot to ask.

So welcome all...post some comments, give a shout out, and keep coming back.