The Surgery... According to Joe

Once Last Cuddle The Night Before The Surgery

So as you have all discovered, Lauren is quite the inspirational writer. 

I'm not sure I can do it justice, but she wanted me to step in and post updates during her recovery... so I'll do my best to fill in where she left off.

This is Joe by the way. I'm Lauren's husband.

The past 24 hours have been a roller coaster ride of emotions for me that will be impossible to accurately put into words, but I'll give it a shot.

The alarm went off at 4:30am.

The previous night we had been at home, feverishly trying to pack clothes and prepare for the coming weeks, not knowing how sick Lauren would actually be or how long she would be away.  She feels so stressed when everything is not in order. I just wanted to get her over to her mum's house where we had planned to sleep that night so she could get some rest before surgery, but she was more concerned about clean sheets and vacuumed floors.  There just wasn't enough time for everything, so with my prodding, we finally left around 11pm.

I don't recommend getting up at 4:30am after going to sleep at midnight... or going to a new year's party the night before that. Maybe I'm just old, but my body doesn't take too kindly to that kind of abuse.

The minute I woke up the morning of the surgery, I could tell something had changed with Lauren's mental state. 

As you have all learned by now, Lauren has been incredibly positive throughout this entire ordeal. She has surprised even me with her inspirational attitude and her "this is simply a trial God is giving me to help me grow" mentality.  

But now things were different. Lauren was really scared. I could feel it.

We knelt down together before leaving for the hospital and prayed. Prayers are like an insurance policy. We always need them, but we often don't realize how valuable they are until something bad happens. I really don't know how people get by in situations like these without prayer.  We're finding that international prayer is even more powerful. 

I think we should continue to tap into that for future problems.  Everyone up for that?  Next time I hear Lauren struggling to get the kids to clean their messy rooms maybe?

As we left the house, Lauren stopped at the room where our kids were fast asleep. I knew exactly what she was thinking. "Is this the last time I'm gonna see my kids? " Something no young mother should have good reason to ask herself. Tears were streaming down her cheeks... so much that she was afraid she would wake them with falling teardrops on their faces. 

We got into the car and drove to the hospital. On the way, Lauren told me she was scared of dying. She was scared of never seeing her kids again. She started down a road I didn't want to go down. She was mostly concerned about losing brain functions. She began giving me instructions on what to do if she died. I'm glad the drive was a short one.

Lauren was too emotional to answer many of the questions at check-in, so I had to talk for her.

We were escorted to a holding room to await the nurse who would shave Lauren's head. She told me she could care less. She wasn't worried about that. Not anymore. 

The nurse came in and gave Lauren a pain chart with a scale from 1-10, and explained what each level meant. She asked Lauren to tell her what level of pain she would be able to deal with.

Lauren asked "Is there a chart to show you how much my kids need me to take care of them?"

We laughed... then cried.

Lauren told the nurse she could handle level 3 or 4. Personally I would ask for a big fat zero, but Lauren is more of a naturalpathic kind of a person, if that's even a real word. Don't get me wrong... she's not a nutter like my sisters who refuse to get an epidural when they are giving birth, but Lauren will only take an ibuprofen if she's really suffering. She eats super healthy and exercises for an hour every day most days. She's not one to put chemicals into her body without good reason. This gives me hope that her body is strong and will fight this tumor hard!

She was told she had to remove her contacts before the surgery. "But how will I see the Angles?" she asked. "I'm gonna be really mad if all I end up seeing is a bunch of blurry white blobs!" 

The door opened and in stepped the first miracle of the day.

Dr. Reichman had come in early to personally shave Lauren's head in only the specific area where he would be making the incisions. THIS WAS A HUGE DEAL! He shaved a patch about the size of a fist right on the top of her head - leaving most of her hair in tact! He then took me into another room and sat down and explained in-detail what he was going to be doing, and why. He didn't need to do that, but it meant so much that he did. Can you tell already? He's my hero.

As he left to scrub up for the operation, the nurses remarked how in all the years they had worked with Dr. Reichman, they had never seen him personally come shave someone's head - he always had his assistant do it! And he always prefers completely bald heads so the hair doesn't get in the way at all.  He said, he was feeling generous because it was the holiday season. Answer to prayer - check!

Before surgery, they wanted to get one final look at the tumor, so they wheeled Lauren into another room for an MRI.

As I sat in the waiting room... alone, tears streamed down my face as I read all the kind messages from friends and family members on Facebook - wishing us well, telling us they were praying and fasting for her. We hear about so much that is bad in the world, but it's nice to know there are so many good people out there.

After the MRI, we were allowed to share a few final tender moments together as we waited for the anesthesiologist to come send her off to sleep for the operation. I used my phone to record a video message from Lauren to the kids, telling them she loved them and felt calm, peaceful and happy. 

The fear in her voice was now gone.

Then they gave her some of the good stuff, and she drifted off to sleep. As I watched her being wheeled down the hallway, I felt totally at peace... and terrified all at the same time. I knew she couldn't be in better hands. I had given her more than one priesthood blessing, and our dear Bishop had come over the night before to give her a blessing. She had what I believe is one of the best neurosurgeons in the world working on her, with the inspiration and guidance of our Heavenly Father - with literally hundreds of people praying to Him for her welfare. How could I not be confident? 

But then again... How could I not be scared out of my freaking mind!!!

I walked out of the restricted area and saw my family waiting for me. They had all woken up very early in the morning to come support me. Mum, Aimy, Meg, Lucy and Kit. I have an incredible family. Thank you family! The only two people missing were my Dad, who is terribly ill right now, and my Sister Sammy, who would have been there in a heartbeat if not for that pesky Atlantic Ocean. Love you Sam!

The next three hours were awful... simply awful.

My family tried to keep my mind off the worry, but it was impossible. Thinking about what was happening to Lauren was just overwhelming.

An old friend and missionary companion, Joe Johnson unexpectedly stopped by to see me. It must have been 10 years since I've seen him. He now works in the hospital as a Pediatrician and has worked with patients who have brain tumors.

In all the commotion over the past 10 days, believe it or not, we have never actually sat down face-to-face with a doctor and been given the chance to simply ask questions. Things have been that crazy. Dr. Reichman has been so accommodating to fit us into his busy schedule, but we had only ever spoken to him on the phone.

I picked Joe's brain... no pun intended... asking all the questions that had been accumulating in my mind, that I had not had the opportunity to ask of a real doc. It was super helpful. Thank you Joe and Sister Johnson for passing the info along.

A nurse came out about half-way through the operation to tell us everything was going according to plan. I can't tell you what a relief that was. Still not out of the woods, but just knowing there was no bad news was a tremendous lift.

I called Mia, our 12 year old, to keep her posted. She was relieved. Joseph and Elyse were deeply engrossed watching the Muppet Show, so of course they couldn't talk. 

We had originally been told the operation would last between 1-2 hours. So far, I've found medical staff like to give a worst case scenario to get you prepared so you are pleased when it does not turn out to be quite as bad. Not a bad tactic... Because of this, I thought the surgery would be done around the one hour mark, so when the third hour rolled around, I began to worry even more... if that's possible. Had something gone wrong and they just weren't telling me? Or maybe it was a good thing... Dr. Reichman was just taking longer to be even more cautious than usual? My mind was playing out every conceivable scenario. As I was about to pick up the phone on the wall and ask the nurse for an update, Dr. Reichman walked into the room.

He was smiling!

He said "Everything went exactly to plan. Lauren is awake, moving and talking!"

Now I've heard some great words in my life...  "I do," "It's a girl," "It's a boy," "It's a girl," "You are hereby called to serve in the Scotland Edinburgh Mission," but I don't think any of these hold a candle to how excited I felt when I heard those words.

Lauren's biggest fear was that she would wake up with brain damage. So when I heard that she knew where she was and who Dr. Reichman was, I was overjoyed! He did tell me that when she first woke up, she wasn't moving the left side of her body, which gave him a scare... but that soon changed. She says she doesn't remember that at all.  She's convinced that she wasn't following instructions because she wasn't really awake yet! The Dr. then gave us a whole bunch of other information. I didn't take much more in, other than the second best news... he had successfully removed the needed biopsy sample and was confident we would get a definitive answer of what kind of tumor she has. Just need to wait a whole 10 days for the labs to process. All I kept thinking was "she's alive and well!"

About 15 minutes later, they wheeled her out on a hospital bed. She had a huge smile as she later told me she had been desperate to get to me.  She looked obviously druggy, but the first thing she said to me was " Honey, I'm not brain dead!" She was over-joyed and full of emotion and overwhelming gratitude!  Her worst fears had not come true.

I quickly thanked my family for coming and followed the medical train of staff wheeling her up to the intensive care unit.

In any other situation I would have been terrified at the thought of wheeling my immobile wife through a set of double doors marked "Neuro Shock Trauma ICU," but I could have skipped down the halls if there weren't strangers around to see me, I was so relieved!

I passed by another patient being wheeled in the opposite direction. She was in a neck-brace, her face was covered in bruises and she had blood coming out of her nose and mouth. Car crash? I prayed she would be OK. I passed another room filled with people all sobbing loudly. Such tragedy.

We finally got to our room and after setting up a bunch of machines and blinking lights, the nurses left us alone and I could finally give my wife a long kiss and tell her how happy I was.

As you can imagine, this journey has brought us closer together than ever before. I highly recommend it :) 

Not.

Lauren is a pretty amazing person. That's why I asked her to be my wife... but you never fully really appreciate what you've got until you're threatened with the prospect of losing it. I can't imagine my life without Lauren. I find ultimate peace and comfort in the fact that we were married in the temple. Mormon's believe marriage is not just a "till death do you part" thing, which is why we build temples - a holy place where a man and wife can be married not just for this life, but for eternity. No matter what the outcome of this journey we're on, I know that Lauren and I will be together, forever.

We had previously been told Lauren would be in a lot of pain when she woke up, and during recovery for a couple weeks - if not longer. Lauren was very afraid that she would not be able to handle the pain.

BUT... to my delight, when the nurse asked her what her pain level was, she said a 2 or 3!  That is a huge answer to prayers... and since then, it's gone down to a solid 2. Rock on, Lauren!

She could not remember much from the morning's events and nothing of the surgery. That was also good news. 

Lauren likes to watch news magazine shows and is convinced that everything she sees on TV will someday happen to her. She once watched a 20/20 about a patient who went in for major surgery and was fully sedated, but woke up in the middle of the operation feeling every pain of the surgeon's knife, but was unable to talk to alert the staff.

That ended up not happening to her. 

Maybe now she'll believe me now when I tell her I'm really not going to murder her some day.  Too many 48 Hours Mysteries end that way :)

She said she remembers waking up and immediately thinking to herself "What are my kid's birthdays?" She remembered each one, and got so emotional that her head started to throb. She remembers the Dr. asking a few questions, then remembers desperately wanting to see me. It made me smile when she told me that :)

If you've read Lauren's blog, you already know she has a sharp sense of humor. We laugh a lot together. That's a problem when you've just had brain surgery.

Back in the ICU room, the nurse asked how she felt. She responded "Like someone did something really really bad to my head, then gave me a bunch of drugs." She then looked at me and I knew it was coming... a smile crept across her face and kept getting bigger and bigger until she was laughing... uncontrollably. I started laughing at her laughter, and we just couldn't stop... I knew by her face that the laughter was hurting her head, but she couldn't stop. It hurt for her to speak - not too much, but enough. She just sat there in her hospital bed thinking of jokes, but keeping them to herself... every now and then she would break into another chuckle. I tried counteracting them with tragic thoughts, but it didn't work. 

Her two sisters, Maren and Melanie came to visit, and the laughing continued. Check out this video of her "in stitches"... get it?

The nurses were super impressed with her progress. It had been over 24 hours since I had eaten, as I was fasting, so I went downstairs to grab some lunch. As I was waiting to get a sandwich, I pulled out my phone to check FB and found a post from Lauren! Not one hour after having the top of her head bolted back on, and she's on her phone updating her Facebook status!!! 

I went back up and she said she was up for going for a walk... amazing. The nurse helped her out of her bed and hooked her up to the pole that carried her IV bags. The nurse then grabbed her catheter bag and clipped it to her belt. Lauren said "I bet this is the highlight of your day... going for a walk with a bag of my pee clipped to your pants." We all bust up laughing, then the nurse told her to take it slow and steady, and asked her how many steps she was comfortable taking "I was thinking about doing a 5k" she said!  As we finished a lap around the unit, the nurse gave her some encouraging words "You must be the most healthy person on this floor!"  Lauren whispered to me "All the other patients must be thinking OH CRAP!" Stop making yourself laugh, hun!

It really is amazing how within a few hours of surgery she is recovering so fantastically well. She even asked for visitors. Our kids won't be able to see her though as they don't allow kids in the Intensive Care Unit.

Amidst all the celebration for the success of the surgery and the speedy recovery, it's easy to forget that absolutely nothing has been done yet to start killing off the tumor. Nothing will be done for at least another 10 days, when we find out what kind of tumor it is and whether it's cancerous.

Our journey is still just beginning, and yet I feel like we have come so far.

I'm sitting here right now watching her sleep. She is still in the ICU. Her head is covered with bandages from the surgery and her wrists are covered with tubes and needles sticking into her. She's won round one of this battle, and for now, that's enough. Tomorrow's challenges will be just as tough, but we'll worry about that tomorrow.

As we were sitting in the waiting room before the operation, I shared the following scripture with Lauren, and the picture below depicts what I know was happening on the other side. Thank you Monica for sending this to me at the very moment Lauren was in surgery.

I need to stop writing now or I'll start to cry. I'm just grateful to my Heavenly Father for answering so many prayers.


"And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up."

Doctrine & Covenants 84:88