Day 36: Back Home 85+ Hours After Brain Surgery

Though we expected to be home by tomorrow, we were able to be released today - both awesome and hard work wrapped into one. 

That meant a flurry of doctors and nurses coming in throughout the day. It also meant IVs, heart monitors and other medical devices being disconnected. Finally, it meant a number of additional medications being prescribed to take home with us. 

It takes a lot to get out of the hospital once you're admitted.   

Today was the first day that I was able to keep three meals down.

We have found that due to the staples across my head, I need thinner, soft food such as pastas, grilled cheese, soups, yogurts and other foods such as that. 

Prior to leaving the hospital we met with the neurological oncologist. She provided an initial diagnosis of being Stage 2, making it a low-grade tumor, and said that it was temporarily being considered an oligo tumor of some kind.  

So, what does that mean?  

There is a weekly tumor board meeting every Thursday. She hopes to have my tumor on the agenda for that meeting. During those meetings they review the case details, providing an additional diagnosis.  

There is deeper work that is being done which we will not have the results of for a couple of weeks.    

Based on all of those inputs we will have a number of options available to us.

Since it is a brain tumor they aren't able to cut a far or deep as they can in other parts of the body.

That means that I will need additional treatment if some kind. It can range from an MRI every few months (extending eventually to once every six months) for the next couple of years to a combo treatment of chemo and radiation.

There are a number of options between those two ends of the spectrum. 

With all of that figured out we headed home.

Laura had to head back out to get the long list of medications filled. Laura's mom helped to get me settled into bed just as the 49ers kicked off their first home game at Levi's Stadium.  

At Levi's Stadium we have the Citrix Owner's Suite which is pretty cool. We have been watching the stadium ben built since it is built directly across from our campus.  

Now that I'm back home we pretty much hit the reset on the recovery progress we had made with my shoulders.

The head incision feels weird. I'm not sure I knew how the shoulder incisions would feel but I had a better idea than of my head. I think some of that was me not wanting to know since it frightened me. 

It's nice to be back home so quickly. It is a true marvel of modern day medicine and technology, as Mitch Joel mentioned in a Facebook comment.   

I'm looking forward to improving a little bit each day. Just like with my shoulders, we're focusing on one step, one day and one challenge at a time.