CutMeLoose.com

Many of you who follow my blog have also been following the journey that my daughter, Maggie, has been on the past two years. I won’t rehash everything here, but you can go back and read the highlights here. In short, she was dignosed with a brain tumor in August of 2003, been through brain surgery, gamma knife surgery, and chemotherapy, and countless tests. The tumor is finally gone, the cancer is gone, but the seizures remain.

We met with Maggie’s brain surgeon, Dr. Grabb, this week regarding all of Maggie’s latest test results, etc. We heard back from him today with the next steps.

After reviewing all of her tests and clinical history, and also consulting with some of the leading seizure testing facilities in the country, Dr. Grabb has decided that he needs to remove the right temporal lobe of Maggie’s brain. Based on everything that has been reviewed, everyone is certain that Maggie’s seizures are coming from that area. By removing that section of her brain, they are hoping for an instant cure. They are viewing the remaining scar tissue as a non-issue and will not be dealing with it at all – unless they find later that they need to.

The surgery will be the first week of August. We will get the exact time and date next Thursday when we meet to go over pre-surgical issues. The surgery will be done at Memorial Hospital right here in Colorado Springs. He’s expecting about a 4 – 5 day hospital stay, along with a 6 – 8 week recovery period.

The obvious question is: what will Maggie be like after surgery, especially since they are removing such a large portion of her brain. Maggie’s side effects will be very minimal. She’ll likely have to continue speech therapy, probably going backwards about 6 months in progress. Overall, she should be able to function a lot better with the temporal lobe gone than she is right now. Assuming no mishaps during surgery, no-one should be able to tell that she no longer has the right temporal lobe of her brain.

Maggie will be attending Basketball Camp at our church next week. Its’ really the only thing she has asked to do this summer. Its’ going to be loud and could cause seizure issues. Please pray that Maggie will have fun, be able to go the entire week, and enjoy this next week before she has to have surgery the following week.

We love all of you and are so thankful for all of your support and prayers. It has been an exhausting 2 years. For Maggie’s sake, we are very hopeful that it is finally coming to end and that she will have her life back.

When this is all over, we are planning a big party at our house. Everyone will be invited.

You can follow any additional updates at Maggie’s site:

# posted by Rob Bushway @ 8:32 AM