MARCH 6

Thank you for your prayers. Gary came out of the gamma-knife procedure just fine. Our day started with a 5:30 admission to the hospital. The nurses took his vitals and then by 6:30, they were taking him to be fitted with the metal halo and given an MRI. Since, they had no idea what order Gary would be starting the "surgery", and there were 5 patients getting the gamma done today, they suggested I go home and call back around 10am ... which I did ... and he still had not been taken in by that time.

Gary was brought back to his room shortly after 1:30pm. They had him go last since he was a more serious case. Then, instead of the procedure lasting 15 min. as the doctors first thought it would, they had to work on him 1 1/2 hours.

Gary said the worst part was getting the injections and them putting the screws in. After they put the metal halo on, they said "SMILE!" and snapped a Polaroid of him. Gary told them I would be thrilled to get a picture and he was right! We will not know right away if this destroyed the tumor. It will be very hard to wait ... not knowing. Gary asked if the tumor was big and the doctors said they don't judge it by being big or small, but by volume. They said his was about 8ml. It was an irregular, oblong shape and because it was so near the optic nerve, they had to spend extra time working around it.

He is home resting tonight and looks a little like Frankenstein. Looks like he is trying to grow some horns to me. *smile* He will be sore for a few days but all in all, doing well. Thank you for remembering him today in your prayers. It helps to calm my spirit knowing so many are praying alongside me. Now, we just need to pray that the tumor was destroyed and he will be ready to proceed to the stem cell transplant.