November 2015: "The Georges in Peru"

There are all sorts of complications when one is a teenage girl who gets stuck in the country of her parents longer than expected.  Mia anounced, "Ugh!  I'll have to take all of those classes that I scheduled for next semester when I thought we wouldn't be here!"

Happy Thanksgiving!  We hope you had a great day of giving thanks with friends and family.  We went to Crete, NE to visit Allen's sister Carolyn.  She organized a 'Turkey Trot' which went on despite the miserable weather.  Only 8 people started.  Only 4 people ran the four miles around the section.  But we felt like we earned our feast.

Amy was initially told that her surgery would be at 4 pm on December 9th at UNMC and that it would take 4 to 8 hours.  We envisioned tired surgeons and nurses working until midnight, wanting to go home, yet needing to delicately remove tumor from fibers of Amy's brain that control movement on her L side of her body and her vision.  We decided that we'd prefer an earlier start on a later date, so I called the office to see if we could reschedule.

Welcome to our blog!  In the past we have used it to repost our prayer letters or mention something interesting that has happened in our lives.  For a while now, this will be where we blog about Amy's health.  Amy was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2004.  It turned out to be a malignant grade III neoplastic astrocytoma with a short life expectancy despite surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.  Thanks to many prayers, Amy beat all the odds and we were able to continue serving as missionaries for the past 11 years in Peru.

Today we had an appointment with Dr. Puccioni, the neurosurgeon.  Mark, as I call him, was one of my gross anatomy partners in medschool.  Some classmates one doesn't want to see on a professional level, and I think neurosurgeons top the list!  But it was still good to see him.  He was quick to say that he had been talking to the neurologist and the neurooncologist and they were recommending that we do surgery as soon as possible.  He felt that the tumor was likely one of two things:  

1.  A returning tumor that has possibly progressed to a higher, more malignant grade IV glioblastoma, or

2. Radiation necrosis, which are changes to the brain caused by the radiation and chemotherapy that Amy had in 2004 and are almost impossible to differentiate from a glioblastoma by looking at an MRI.  

We sure hope it is the latter.  Either way, surgery is indicated.  Surgery should be able to remove most of the mass and the pathologists can look at it under a microscope and tell us if it is tumor or radiation necrosis.  There is a risk of paralysis on one side of the body and losing some of Amy's visual field from the surgery.  Hopefully, her seizures will decrease after the surgery.  Surgery has tentatively been set up for December 2nd, but this hasn't been confirmed yet.  Thanks for praying.

Today the neurosurgery office called to say that they couldn't get Amy scheduled for surgery until December 9th.  We're disappointed that we have to wait three weeks before we can find out what is really going on inside of her brain.  (Does anyone really know what is going on inside of a woman's brain?)  Pray that she doesn't have worse headaches or other problems while we wait.