Surgery was a Success! What’s up next?
Steve’s surgery last week was a success. The spine surgeons were able to remove the tumors that were compressing Steve’s spinal cord without having to insert the titanium rods. His bones were surprisingly strong. They did insert a little cement into the spine where they removed the tumors, just to give it a little more strength.
Because they didn’t have to insert the rods, the recovery was much easier. Steve was up walking around the following day and then doing the stairs a day later.
Two days after his surgery, his heart rate was still high – it was running 115-120. Come to find out it was because he has a blood clot in his lungs. He was at a high risk for getting one, so they weren’t surprised. They put him on blood thinners and monitored him for 24 hours and since he did fine, they sent him home.
He came home on Saturday afternoon, while my entire family was at Danielle’s wedding. His friend Chris was planning on visiting him on Saturday so I asked her to crash at our house so she could stay with him all day. I didn’t worry once, I knew he was in capable hands. The girls and I had a great time at the wedding, but we missed having Steve there.
It was a long week for me. Between going back and forth to the hospital to see him, bringing his parents back and forth and then bringing the girls to see him and then getting everything ready for the wedding — needless to say I ran myself down and now I have a cold. I also had a major panic attack on the alter next to Danielle and Steve while the priest was giving his homily. It was the worst experience of my life but I didn’t get up and run out of the church like I wanted to do, nor did I pass out or puke like I felt like I was going to do. I sat there and worked through it for the probably 5 minutes it lasted, though it seemed like much longer. My therapist told me it was the best thing I could have done, to stay there and work through it. But it was awful. I suppose it was bound to happen with all the anxiety I had built up all week long.
Now Steve is home and he’s doing well. He really wanted to go into the office for a few hours each day this week but hasn’t made it there yet. Walking long distances isn’t very easy for him. So we are doing a little bit at a time. He struggles with that because he wants to do more sooner, but after a good talk with his oncologist, who we both trust, he realizes he needs to do it one day at a time.
The next steps for Steve are to do a little radiation on his spine. The doctors think radiation would be best to slow the tumors down on his spine so they don’t compress his spine again anytime soon. We are waiting to talk to the people in radiation to see when that will begin, but my guess is probably next week. Dr. Rana thinks it’ll be about 10 treatments every day for about 30 minutes each day.
In the meantime the doctor is filling out the paperwork to get the chemo pill and he’ll start that in a few weeks.