Month: January 2025

After everything that had happened over the last week, by Saturday, November 23, we were feeling the confinement of the hospital and Laura really needed to get outside and feel the sun on her face. I just wanted to get to something “normal” – like a real bed, and eventually home.

The day started well with some sunshine coming in the windows and Laura’s breakfast in bed delivered. I had to get my own, since the medical plan didn’t cover my meals. But the cafe downstairs was very well priced and had some decent food – not like some hospitals that I’ve been to.

After breakfast, we waited a while for the discharge to come through. While it seemed like forever, it probably was only an hour or so. Finally, our day-shift head nurse Kyle came in and told us that after he gave us the proper instructions, prescriptions, and paperwork, we were free to go. We listened to his instructions, especially about when Laura could dunk her head underwater (not that we had plans to go swimming yet) and for the tapering off of the medications they were giving her during her stay. He told me the medications were in the hospital pharmacy and that I could go pick them up at any time. He then removed the IV lines in Laura’s arm and permanently disconnected the monitor feeds. Yay! No more finger sensor (which was totally annoying, BTW)!

Laura sent me down for the medications while she got dressed, ready, and packed. I came back into the room, and we strode victoriously out through the hospital to the front door and on to the car.

Honestly, it felt odd to be outside during the day. Most of the time that I had been outside was during the evenings or nights when we would have hot chocolate, and only once during the day when I had to buy some additional clothing for myself: I had only packed for 4 days, so I ran out of clothes on Tuesday and went shopping.

And by “odd”, I’m not sure I can describe how it felt. It was good certainly, but life had changed. We had quite literally faced death and survived, but we also knew there was a road to recovery ahead. We weren’t sure how long yet – and still aren’t, but it wasn’t like everything was all “done” just yet. There was a sense of “what now?” as well. I think it felt more like a happy/sad reprieve. Certainly, happy because we were out and alive and Laura was better every day, but sad in the sense that we knew the fight wasn’t quite over yet: maybe it was kinda like halftime in the big game. Even now looking back, it still doesn’t seem real, but I know that it was. Like I said – it’s hard to describe unless you’ve lived it. Some of you have.

But it was Saturday, sunny, and we were free to move about town. Boise has a street market every Saturday and we had been there before several years ago, so we thought to go again and just walk around.

So out we went. You can see that Laura is happy to be outside and moving. I was so nervous, though, that I may have been hovering over her a little. She was still a little tired and low on energy but walking around the market was uplifting for us both. We didn’t see the one hat vendor that she remembered from years ago, but that week seemed to have a smaller turnout than before, probably because it was not summer. After about a half hour, she was done walking, and we made it back to the car.

We had been invited to stay overnight with a couple from the Awaken Boise campus and we were happy to take them up on their offer. We got there around lunch for some Italian sausage soup, which we enjoyed, and had some good conversations before we got settled in their guest room.

As you can see, Laura is very happy to be on the outside of the hospital and at the beginning of our trip home. She took a long afternoon nap sprawled out on their California King guest bed – Wow! Once she hit the mattress, she was out in less than a minute. SO much more comfortable than the hospital bed. We ate dinner with them again than evening and turned in fairly early.

In the cold morning (notice the frost on our car), we attended services at Awaken, got more prayer and lots of hugs. After an amazing lunch at Tupelo Honey (complete with grits and banana pudding), we headed out on the first half of our trip home.

After remembering the snow and storms of the previous weekend, I was wary of heading into the passes driving 8 hours straight through. Plus, so much time in the car all at once would have been hard on us both. I made a reservation in Kennewick, WA, which was about 4 hours’ drive or halfway home. Thankfully, I had enough Marriott points left for a free night. Too bad I didn’t get any for the hospital stay! The trip was miraculously clear of snow and an easy relaxing drive. We got to the hotel early in the evening, had dinner and went to sleep. It was the most activity Laura had done in a week, so she was tired but happy.

The next morning, there just happened to be an Original Pancake House. Yum!

After that yummy breakfast, we hit the road again (also peaceful and non-eventful) and arrived at home at a decent hour. All told, the return was easy and good.

At this point in the journey, we were at a bit of a “reprieve” where we were no longer hospital-bound, but also not yet in the next part of the recovery/treatment phase. We knew that once we had gotten settled in at home, we were probably expected to begin the follow-up visits to the local hospital.

I will leave this section on the positive notes that our insurance covered almost all of the unforeseen medical bills, which were staggering; we were home safe; and we were still together to face whatever came next.

After the whirlwind stressful day of surgery, I was not really able to sleep well at all. If any of you have stayed in a hospital, you know that the nurses are masochists and love to make you sleep deprived. Yes, I know it’s their job to make sure the patient is alive and well, but waking people up every 3 hours after they JUST got to sleep is, well, mean. In spite of that, I have to say that our nursing team were all wonderful people.

Not that I was really asleep anyway. I could not relax after the surgery, partly from relief, partly from joy that she was out and still alive, and partly because I was also just too tired to sleep. Or maybe it had something to do with the coffee.

The sleeper sofa was wide and solid, but a little hard. It was a nice touch, though.

Laura at this point was itching to get up, sit up, walk around, and just do things in general. She had been laid out with pain for so long, that the absence of it was making her want to start doing things.

Of course, major surgery can take a lot out of a person, so she was also sleeping quite a lot – but only in small bursts, since she kept getting woken up for “vitals” checks.

After the first day, the change in Laura’s alertness and awareness was amazing. She was recovering faster than anyone thought she would. Before surgery, the tumor was pressing her brain so hard, that not only did it hurt constantly, but she was even unable to think clearly. Now that it was gone, she started doing and thinking more a little at a time. To me, the change was remarkable, and she was on her way back. To the doctors who came by periodically to check on her, she was doing amazingly well.

DO NOT PANIC – These are good news scans below:

The neurosurgeon came to show us the CT scan for the after-surgery look at the place where the tumor used to be. The before is on the left, and the after on the right. They look different because the before is an MRI and the after is a CT scan, so they have different resolution and contrasts. The white area on the before is the tumor. On the after shot, you can see a lot of black areas: those are air gaps where the tumor no longer exists. You can even see the gap between her skull and brain to see how much extra space the tumor was taking up. This picture was taken immediately after surgery, but even so soon after surgery, the midline had moved over half the distance it was displaced by (now only 8mm), and the brain had begun re-expanding since the pressure was no longer there. HUGE improvement! No more headaches!

Those flowers are on a wall mural in the NeST area, and you can see that Laura is much happier walking around outside of the room. They would not take out the IV plugs “just in case” while she was there. Those were bothersome for her until the day of release.

That night, 24 hours after surgery, Laura wanted to wash her hair – but, with the incision and the sealant on her scalp, she had to be very careful. Luckily, nurse Madie was able to help her do her hair properly without causing damage to the incision area.

The next day (Friday), after several visits from doctors, therapists, and nurses, we were told that Laura was doing so much better: that they expected people who had been post-op for 3 weeks to be doing as well as she was doing only 2 days after surgery. The recovery was going spectacularly. So well, in fact, that Laura was given a “hall pass” to wander around the entire hospital – just not allowed to leave yet. They have an outdoor observation deck/lounge that we were supposed to go to, so we suited up with jackets and sunglasses ready for the sun.

Unfortunately, the deck ended up being closed for the season just the day before. We then proceeded to wander around the building, stopping at the gift shop and finding a place where the view of the mountains was the best. Laura was disappointed that the selection of T-Shirts at the gift shop did not include any post-surgery “victory” shirts. She would later rectify the situation with orders from Etsy.

Once we got back, we met the oncology doctors in the NeST hallway – they were looking for us. We had never met them, but I could tell from their expressions that they were the “bad news” doctors. What they told us shouldn’t have been a surprise for us, I suppose, but it wasn’t something that we really had thought through. With the resounding success of the surgery and the clear relief from pain, we didn’t think too far past that.

What they told us was that the tumor was something called a glioblastoma. At the time, we had never heard of this. Apparently, there are things called “glial” cells which support the neurons in the brain and that is where this tumor grew – right on the outside edge of the brain. Good for us since it could be removed easily, instead of some tumors that grow deeper inside. More tests were still to be done to determine the type of glioblastoma and its grade. Brain tumors inside the blood-brain barrier do not have “stages”, but “grades” because they do not spread outside of the brain. Other cancers in the rest of the body are classified in stages, because they can spread to other areas or “metastasize”. Most brain tumors do not do that.

The implications of that, however, meant that they were referring us to a cancer treatment center in our local area. If I had to deliver news like that frequently, I would also have a sad expression on my face most of the time.

The shock of this was somewhat mitigated by the fact that the final test results were a few weeks off, and by the fact that God had gifted us with a wonderful care team in a great hospital, and that He had also given us joy to be alive and together. It was almost like a vacation – if on a vacation you go scuba diving, get the bends, have to go to a decompression chamber, and get treated for a shark bite while you’re at it, but still get to be on the beach.

Even that news couldn’t keep us down for long. We knew that we were close to being discharged and that we would be coming home soon.

Plus, we were facing this together. Always.