Alan’s Army

OK, Alan has gone in for the surgery.

Thanks for your prayers.

We’ve been in the pre-op waiting room since 6pm.  A trauma case came in and took the OR  so we are waiting til it frees up.  But at least we actually saw the neuro-surgeon.  He wants to do the “Optic Nerve Fenestration” to both sides as he says it can’t hurt the left eye and could possibly help.  The downside is that the procedure could take away what little sight he has in the right eye, but their feeling is that he will likely lose that anyway, so its worth the risk.  He also wants to put Alan on serious intravenous  steroids so he is now talking about keeping him here for three days.

I will update further, thanks!

OK, as Alan just said “Today has gone from bad to SUCKS”

We were told in Philly that this was an outpatient procedure. But they are now admitting Alan to University Hospital and he will be here at least overnight. No word yet on when the surgery will take place.

Updates to follow . . . Same Alan channel, unknown Alan time. (Showing my age - Baby Boomers will recognize the end-of-episode tagline from the TV Batman.)

Thanks for your continued prayers!

Love,

Andrew

Prayers requested.

We are leaving Philly and headed to Newark. The Philly neuro-opthamologist agrees with Dr. Rosenberg at JFK that time is of the essence to improve Alan’s sight. They want Alan to have a surgical procedure that makes slits in the sheath around the optic nerve to relieve the pressure.

The appropriate surgeon is not available at either Penn or JFK until Wednesday, so Dr. Rosenberg has arranged for a surgeon at the University Medical Center in Newark to do the surgery today. They will do the right eye hoping to improve or at least maintain sight as it is. There could be ancillary improvement to the left eye, however, that is a long shot as the doctor has said that nerve has already atrophied.

Disturbingly, he also categorized the planned procedure for the right eye as “heroic efforts”.

Needless to say, we very much appreciate your thoughts and prayers for the doctors and Alan’s eyesight at this time.

Further updates to follow.

Love,

Andrew

The JFK neuro-opthamologist called me at 8:30 last night to say he got a hold of a counter-part at UPenn.  He gave us his home phone number and said to call him immediately.  So I did and he said he could see us early before the regular day started so we have an 8:30 appointment at UPenn.  He asked if we had any films we could bring and I told him I had already made (or Amber did) a complete set of all the CDs with images on them from pre-op on 5/12 to the latest CT on Wednesday 6/24.  (Alan and I drove to JFK yesterday in a fierce thunderstorm to pickup the CD from the 6/19 CT scan which we were missing.)

So we are on our way to Philly for the eye appointment at UPenn and then to the Oncologist appointment at the Dr.’s office near Pennsylvania Hospital.  Thanks for your support!

Love,

Andrew