I haven't had much reason to update until now. Jared finally had the radiosurgery yesterday. I don't really know why it was put off so long, but it was. They finally got the approval from our insurance, then Jared was out of town for a week for work, and they finally scheduled the surgery to take place on February 14th. He had to go in on the 11th to do all of the pre-surgery stuff. He got another MRI so they could map out where to do the radiation. He had an appointment a couple hours later with his old radiation oncologist - he told him that the tumor had grown a little in size and had changed shape. I don't know if that's normal or not, but it is what it is. He also got fitted for the mask.
We were geared up to go on the 14th, and we got a phone call a couple hours before his scheduled surgery cancelling the procedure because the machines were down. She didn't know when it would be re-scheduled, she said probably sometime next week. Jared was not happy about it. He had taken a day off of work, he really wanted to weekend to recuperate, and he doesn't have much time off of work. But more importantly, this last week he's been feeling more dizzy and off-balance. He could feel it rapidly getting worse so he really didn't want to put it off any longer.
Yesterday they called and said everything was ready to go! So a couple hours later we were there getting set up for the procedure!
These pictures, as cool as they are, give me the creeps. The techs got him all set up, they put on his choice of music, then they went to the other room to watch him on TV screens. I guess right after I left they took an x-ray, then the radiation doctor came in to look over everything and give the okay. The whole thing took about 30-40 minutes. When he came out, he had big lines all over his face from the mask. We went and had lunch upstairs overlooking the valley, then headed home.
So far, it's only been about 24 hours since surgery. He's had a constant headache and just feels groggy. We're hoping all of this wears off by Monday. He's pretty much slept since then, so we expect for him to feel better every day. All of his symptoms so far are pretty typical. We're hoping he doesn't show any signs of swelling, or he'll have to get back on steroids. So far, everything seems to be going well. From here, I think we just wait until his next MRI, which I think is scheduled in April. (I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have any more appointments before then! :))
