Post-op with the Neurosurgeon

Phew! What a L-O-N-G, LONG day! This guy has GOT to be some kinda celebrity. His waiting room is INSANE! Every single chair was full today, AND they went to go get chairs from another room for the overflow to sit in! It's what I imagine waiting for an appointment with Simon Cowell would be like. Finally after waiting an HOUR, we were ushered back to a room. Because there was so much backup, we saw the doctor in a conference room this time :) tee hee...

First the P.A. came in, then the nurse, finally Dr. Ahuja. From all we heard the same verdict: CT scan looks good. Symptoms he has been experiencing are typical. We need to be PATIENT this is a very difficult surgery to recover from and recuperation will NOT be easy. They warned him to keep taking it slow and to take his time backing off his pain meds. Both the doctor and the nurse noticed his significant weight loss. Finally, we got to see the CT scan (not that either of us knew what we were looking at), but the nurse assured us there were no abnormalities. There is a pocket of fluid around where the decompression surgery was done, but that is to be expected. It is comparable to when you have knee surgery, and it takes a while for the swelling (fluid) to go down. Basically, John's brain looks good, and he is traveling nicely down the road to recovery.

His next appointment is in about 3 weeks; however, he does not necessarily have to be off work that long. The nurse said to check in when he starts feeling up to returning to work, and they will consider releasing him to return to work. John's goal is in two weeks. He said this to both the doctor and the nurse, and while they didn't make any promises, they didn't act like that was an outlandish goal either. So two weeks is what we're aiming for. With God's help, we hope to get him healed enough by then.

Thank you so much for continuing to hold us close in your prayers. While we are far from the finish line still, I feel at least like now I can see the tape crossing the track, and I really feel your prayers energizing me and giving us the strength to gut it out and kick into high drive for this end stretch here.

Thank you ALL for your support through this difficult and trying time.