Tumor-Free Tuesday

Before going in for surgery, my love felt it was very important to keep positive energy around. With this in mind, my love looked forward to the day after surgery, saying it would be "Tumor-Free Tuesday."

I hate to say it, but I had my doubts. I didn't know if the surgeon would really be able to remove the entire mass as the last surgeon mentioned some obstacles. Thankfully, the surgeon is much more skilled and knowledgeable than I am and was able to remove the entire mass as well as some surrounding tissue in each direction around where the tumor had been without causing damage to my love's motor functioning. (For those of you who don't know, the tumor was situated very close to the motor strip on the right side of the brain, which affects the left side of the body's motor functioning.)

It is important to understand that the type of cancer my love has is one that has a tendency to project out from tumors into surrounding tissues (kind of like fingers), so there may be some tumor/cancer cells left. The doctor said we probably removed about 99.9% of the cells between the two surgeries, but we still have to be aware of the other .1% that may be lingering. This is why my love will still have to undergo radiation therapy and chemotherapy treatment and have frequent MRI's to see if anything tries to grow back. Basically, the goal is to kick the bad cells in the pants so hard that they go away and don't come back.

Anyway, today will forever be Tumor-Free Tuesday in my book. We are all so thankful to be going into treatment without a large mass that needs to be shrunk in order to go away.

Just to further update everyone and brag some more about my love, the surgeon said yesterday that my love was very helpful during the surgery. I think I mentioned in a previous post that my love had to be awake for part of the surgery. Well, of the 3 1/2 to 4 hours that the surgery took, the surgeon said my love needed to be awake for about an hour of it. During the time my love was awake, my love was asked to do things like smile and wiggle fingers on the left hand so that the surgeon knew he wasn't impairing my love's functioning. The surgeon said that many people stop responding and helping about half way through, but my love was a total trooper and was helpful the entire time my love's help was needed. I am so proud of my love and admire my love's strength and courage so much. My love inspires me!

So yeah, Happy Tumor-Free Tuesday to everyone!