All I Want For Christmas Is -- Surgery?

Ok, we met with the doctor today and it was very good. He answered our questions and we feel good about letting him do the surgery. We will confirm it on Wednesday but it looks like surgery will be on Tuesday January 29th. The doctor is hopeful that we are looking at a low grade tumor. What that means is that all tumors are rated 1-4 and a 1 is the best you can get. If it is a 1 and they can get most of it out he stands a good chance. If it is a 2 his chances will depend on how much they can remove. A 3 or 4 gives a very bad outlook. On the day of surgery they will send a sample to the lab and the lab will give there "opinion" about the tumor type. A full diagnosis with grading of the tumor will take a week from the date of surgery. After surgery Josh will be in the ICU for a day or two. The biggest concern at that point will be if he can swallow and breath on his own. The tumor is located right at the 9-12 cranial nerves and they control that function. If they are disturbed they may swell and he would lose function till they returned to normal. If that happened they would have to keep him intubated until function returned. After they have him stablized he will move from ICU to the floor and stay in the hospital for another 5-7 days. Once he is stable they will do another MRI to see if any tumor was missed or left behind. SO-- now we wait for surgery, then we wait for another week to get the grade. We are asking that everybody pray for surgery to go well and for a grade 1. We are also just trying to spend as much happy time as possible. So many people have been good to us, gifts and cards and calls and prayers. Please keep praying and I will keep you posted on anything that happens. Merry Christmas