Tumor Removal

Some of you may know or may not know. Some may only know part of the story so I may repeat myself on parts of it.

Earlier this year (around March / April), Michael was having problems with his legs and hands and we went to see our new family doctor at the time (our old family doctor had to retire and become Mayor of Kaufman). He said it was arthritis, which I have seen arthritis and knew it wasn’t that. We did know, or at least we felt, it was not related to his two back surgeries back in 2006. So not liking that answer, we found ourselves a new family doctor.

Going to this doctor and talking with his PA, they felt that this was a bigger picture with something possible like MS or Lupus and wanted to eliminate all things. They did a complete blood workup and sent him for a brain MRI and then sent us to a neurologist specializing in MS. The brain MRI showed he did have a brain (joke with us) and that it looked very healthy. The neurologist ruled out MS and said it was carpal tunnel syndrome. Knowing Michael, he got frustrated with doctors, and went on with the pain and discomfort. The symptoms he has was not all the time, they would come, stay for a bit, and then get better.

Mid-August, the symptoms got pretty bad. At this point, his legs would jerk, causing his back to hurt where the fusion is from his surgery. He had weakness in his legs. He then called his orthopedic surgeon and scheduled an appointment. It did take about 1 ½ weeks to get in to see him and we saw him on Tuesday August 26th. At times, Michael had to struggle to walk. The doctor took one look at Michael and admitted him to the hospital for testing. He said that he looked worse than both his surgeries put together.

They began running all kinds of tests on Wednesday and found a tumor located inside the spinal cord in the fluid and it was entangled with his nerves and called in a neurosurgeon. By Friday he was not able to walk at all. Friday August 29th, he went into surgery to have the tumor removed. They surgery lasted 6 ½ hours. They neurosurgeon did say he able removed the entire tumor and only 3 nerves were damaged and un-repairable by the tumor. We will have to wait and see what they are and how it can affect him. They did s end the tumor off for testing to see what it is. They told me it could take several days to see what it is. They had him in ICU from Friday evening until Monday afternoon due to the fact that they had to open the spinal cord and drain the fluid. Wednesday he was able to get up and actually walk again. They let us go home on Thursday September 4th.

All he is able to do right now is sit, stand, and walk. No lifting, bending, twisting, etc. He has been off work now for over a month and we don’t know if and when he will get to go back. We do go back next week sometime to the neurosurgeon to see if he will be able to begin doing more. His orthopedic surgeon is staying on the case as his primary doctor.