Made it through surgery

After about 3.5 hours of waiting (essentially about 3 hours too long for all of us in the waiting room), the neuro surgeon came out and proclaimed, "He did great." The neuro surgeon was able to remove both tumors, but like he told us before, some cancer cells would remain. He identified the masses as "adenocarcinoma," which is the type of cancer E. had in his esophagus. So, again, all fingers point to these tumors being a metastases of E.'s esophageal cancer. Once the pathology is complete, we'll have a definitive answer. If the tumors have esophageal cells in them, it will confirm what is suspected.

As a side note, mets to the brain is more common for certain cancers than others. For example, lung cancer and myeloma sometimes metastasize to the brain. Esophageal cancer on the other hand? 1.5%! It is not that esophageal cancer doesn't metastasize to other parts of the body. It does. But it commonly metastasizes to other locations like the lungs or the liver. Only 1.5% of esophageal cancer patients have metastases to the brain! (I claim no responsibility for the accuracy of these statistics. I just happen to come across this interesting one while googling things I probably have no business googling.)

Anyways, the neuro surgeon indicated that E. would be in recovery for about thirty minutes and then would be transferred to the ICU where we could see him. As they wheeled him down the hall, I was able to hold his hand and talk to him. In our ride down the elevator, he was trying to pull out his nasal cannula for oxygen and was attempting to pull off the gauze bandages on his head. He was not a happy camper. One comment was repeating over and over ... and I quote, "I don't need this shit!"

Once E. was settled in ICU, we were able to take turns visiting with him. He looked much better than I expected. His entire head is covered in white gauze bandaging, from his eyebrows to his ears and up. His coloring was good and there wasn't nearly the swelling I thought there would be. He's moving his arms and legs, he sees, he hears and he's talking. And he's complaining of one badass headache!

He's got one of those push buttons to self-administer morphine, and despite us telling him that it administers a maximum of once every fifteen minutes, he's pushing the button every few seconds. He is in mass amounts of pain. I am hopeful they'll be able to get that under control a bit more as I hate to see him so miserable. He alternates from being a butthole to apologizing for being a butthole. "I heard I was a butthole." "I'm sorry I was a butthole." "I am not a butthole." Only his language was a lot more colorful. For the most part, he is very coherent. He did ask the same questions over and over, so I gave him the same answers over and over. Occasionally, he would shout out some random comment out of nowhere that would catch me off guard. Oh, and he is convinced someone fed him beer. At first I thought I misunderstood him, but after he repeated it several times, I asked him why he thought that and he said, "Cause I can taste it!" I've had cherry flavored meds and bubblegum flavored meds, but beer flavored meds is a new one for me.

He will continue to be monitored in ICU for the night. Around 4:30 am he will receive another CT scan to check for swelling and abnormalities. The doctor will review the CT scan and check on E. tomorrow. There is a possibility that E. could be transferred to the floor as early as tomorrow, but he will most likely remain in ICU for another day. He's only allowed two visitors at a time for a few minutes each hour. To keep him from getting over stimulated, we're asking that visits be limited to family members this first day (and no visits are allowed between 6:30 am - 8:00 am and 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm). He's on the first floor ICU and there is a waiting room directly outside for anyone who would like to visit or check on him. Someone will undoubtedly be there with the up-to-the-minute update.