I spoke with Dr. Pilcher's assistant

I spoke with Dr. Pilcher's assistant this morning. Her interpretation of what is to come is a lot scarier than what we had been told up to now. She stated Dr. Pilcher doesn't think he can get the whole tumor. There is part of it that goes into the brain stem and he won't know if he can risk trying to remove it until he is in there. Also, there is a major artery that runs through the tumor and they told us before that that was not a big deal. Now she is saying that they don't know if they can remove that part either because it could cause Michael to have a stroke if they do. Either of those scenarios will mean radiation (which has it's own risks and side effects).

Michael is going to have a question mark shaped incision behind his right ear behind the hairline. They will put in titanium plates to hold his skull together. It will take 6 months for the skull to heal and during that time Michael can't ride a bike, play on a swingset, etc. (That means no John Deere tractor - that is not going to go over well.) Dr. Pilcher's assistant said that Michael will not feel up to going to Pre-K like we had planned, which is a contradiction from what we were told before. That is very discouraging. We were told before that he would bounce back quickly and that is not the picture she painted this morning.

Well, we will just take things one day (or one hour) at a time. Michael is the first surgery tomorrow morning. We have to be there at 6 am and surgery starts at 7:30 am. He will be in ICU 1 -2 days and have a total stay of a week. They will keep him an extra day or two since we live so far from the hospital. We will keep everybody posted as quick as we can. JoAnne