Home from Surgery Round 3

Surgery was this morning, and we are already home!!  It really was outpatient and Tara is sleeping downstairs.  She has to fight the usual nausea and pain from surgery; but we have lots of pain meds on hand and "team Tara" (family members) are good nurses; so she was released to our care.  Surgery was less than an hour and went well. Here's the details:

Dr. Smith said he saw infection AGAIN on a titanium plate at the top of her head - so guess what? He just plain and simple took that plate out; never to return.  He's tired of this infection recurring and apparently Tara's head doesn't like that plate; so it's out.  This means she'll have a dent in her head the size of a dime - but dents don't bother us.  The infection was only around the plate and he didn't see any on the bone flap - thank heavens!  She does have 4 other plates in there that are supposedly fine - but this one is troublesome being at the top of her head where there are not good blood vessels around to help fight infection.

The down side to all of this is that instead of finishing Vancomyacin March 29th, we now get to take it for another month.  So, pray for Tara's poor stomach to tolerate this drug.  We are working on combating the toll it takes on her stomach and yesterday Tara felt pretty good; so maybe the probiotics, slippery elm, and ulcer meds are all working!  We were really looking forward to not having this drug as of next week; but such is life, it's better to be safe than sorry!

We are getting to know Dr. Smith a little too well  - we really expected never to meet him - always hoping for the best and hoping ONE surgery would be it; but met him we have.  He is a very skilled surgeon, and very kind and we like him very much.  We are blessed to know two skilled, kind, brain surgeons!  His father had a glioblastoma, so he's very committed to the cause.  He really has Tara's best interests at heart.

Dr. Smith also said no chemo of any kind for a month.  No clinical trial or Temodar.  That puts us behind yet another month in our treatment schedule; but all's well because he reminded us he didn't see signs of a recurrent tumor in there; so the infection right now is more important than the recurrent tumor (that isn't going to recur because so many of you are praying and I have faith she will beat this!!!)

Love to you all,

Becky