The best of two bad options

(Monday, 12/30): I knew today was going to be hard, and it didn’t disappoint.

This morning our neurosurgeon came in and had a lot of information for us. To be honest, my head is still spinning from it. He’s a phenomenal neurosurgeon… Just a very fast talker and very blunt. David loves him. The surgery to figure out the hematoma and the tumor in his brain needed to get done today. So we prepped David for that. He also gave us the news that David has stage 4 melanoma. It’s in a lot of places in his body. Definitely not good news. But we needed to focus one step at a time. So he had his surgery.

The Dr came out and spoke to us (my dad was with me today). He got out all the tumor that he could see. Forgive me, because this next part I don’t fully understand the medical terms that he used… Essentially, the tumor is in such a slippery part, that pieces could easily be moving around and start growing in an area that he couldn’t see today. So there’s a significant chance for regrowth. Also, melanoma has bloody tumors, so the Dr was concerned with bleeds. He also spoke with us about the next step in David’s treatment plan.

We are kind of at a crossroads as to what to do. The first choice is for David to start treatment for melanoma. That is done through immunotherapy, which can cause inflammation, which would then make the bad tumor around one of David’s vertebrae worse, causing all sorts of problems. The second choice is to have surgery on the tumor asap. The problem with that, is that it is a major surgery with a long recovery time. The neurosurgeon is concerned with this because he wants to make sure David’s quality of life isn’t hindered. This is where we have to have a lot of trust in our doctors. They are very good with communicating with one another. So they are getting together, behind the scenes to talk about how advanced his cancer is and which plan they suggest for David. Of course, it’s still up to us, though.

Fast forward to the evening. David was complaining about his head a lot. After his procedure, they did a routine CT scan of his head to make sure there wasn’t any additional bleeding. With his head hurting so much, we kind of figured there was, and we were right. So last night he went down to the OR again. The Dr was able to clean up the bleeds (there quite a few, coming from different areas). He left the bone flap (part of the skull) off of David’s head, due to some swelling. Once the swelling comes down, they will go back and replace that. The surgeon said this will definitely put off any spinal surgery for a couple days, at least. I’m a little relieved, as it will give us just a little bit longer to weigh our choices and pray about it. David remains intubated (having a breathing tube in his mouth), but the Dr is hopeful that we can take it out this morning. He is very responsive, even while sedated, so that’s good.

Here’s the thing with David. We’ve been told several times during this journey so far, that David shouldn’t be doing as well as he is, based off his imaging reports. He is a fighter. He is strong. So here are our prayer requests for now:

• For God to constantly renew David’s strength and for David to continue to do more than the Dr’s believe he should be able to.
• For David’s doctors, for wisdom for them to determine the best course of action.
• Wisdom for David and myself, that we would know the best course of action for our family.
• For peace for our whole family
• For complete healing of David’s body
• Continued prayers for family that is taking care of our kids. My heart longs to be home with them, but I know my place is by David’s side right now.

Please keep us in your prayers. I know that I always say that, but I’m not saying it, just to say it. We NEED your prayers. Above anything else. Thank you for your continued support of us. We love you all and it has meant so much to us to see the outpouring of love we have gotten from all of you.