Dear Family and Friends,
Today has been a not-so-great day. Zac had another MRI, with contrast this time, of his brain, thoracic and lumbar spine. I failed to mention, to anyone I guess, that he needed to be checked for tumors in his brain. Thankfully, his brain is clear. Praise God! His thoracic spine is also clear! The tumor on his lumbar spine, however, is larger than previously thought and will take an extensive surgery to remove. The surgeon prepped us that it will be very difficult to remove all the tumor, so radiation is likely in Zac’s future.
The surgery will require several teams of surgeons to work eight hours or more to remove all of the tumor. All the neurosurgeons here have offered to help on the case, which is pretty awesome. As best we could tell, they would work on it in shifts. However, these types of tumors are rare and the neurosurgeons here haven’t seen many. While they feel confident that they could do the surgery, they might not be the best choice. Therefore, we are seeking treatment at a university hospital. The neurosurgeon here is working on the transfer of care this weekend and we hopefully will have a plan by Monday, if not before. Again, time is of the essence. If we were having the surgery here, the plan was for Tuesday. So we know wherever we go, it will be this coming week. We have no idea the duration of his hospital stay or the length and intensity of his recovery. There are risks which I dare not even mutter quietly to myself.
The flood of emotions that have come with this is overwhelming. All these emotions from Everett that we’d boxed up and put away in the back of our minds are suddenly drowning us. I feel like we just need to breathe but can’t find enough air. I hate this! I hate that this is happening to our family! I hate that we are going to be separated from our children and that they feel the tension in our home. I hate watching my husband suffer and try to be strong! I am so, so angry. And so, so, so scared. I am strong. He is strong. We are strong. But I DON’T WANT TO BE STRONG ANYMORE! I want to ball up in a corner and cry and pretend that this isn’t happening. I want to yell and scream and curse and punch something until it hurts as badly as we do. I don’t want to do that part of our lives over again. We were just getting back to the good stuff. We have worked so hard to overcome, physically, emotionally, financially. I don’t know where we will find the energy to do it again and yet I know we have to. We have no choice.
So, we trudge on. We place our faith in God. We pray and pray and pray some more. We try to laugh. We cry. We hug. And we shake that uncontrollable shake that comes from being so completely overcome that your body can’t process fast enough. And we love. We love each other so much and so hard that it is enough to make things better in just this one moment. Because the next moment is too scary. That’s the honest truth.
Please pray that the transfer happens quickly and that Zac doesn’t get worse while we wait. Please pray that the doctors are able to remove the entire tumor so that radiation will not be necessary. Please pray that it isn’t cancer. Please pray for pain control. Please pray that there is no additional damage from the surgery itself. Please pray for strength for all of us. Pray for faith and trust and peace. Just please pray…
Love,
The Bollinger Family
No comments:
Post a Comment