Boston Arrival!

Boston welcomed us with a beautiful sunset as we arrived on Thursday night. We found out Wednesday morning that an OR became available for Victoria to have surgery this coming Monday, so we threw our stuff in bags and rushed up here for her pre-op scans and swallow test, which were yesterday morning.

Everything looked the same in her scans and the swallow test was completely normal, which was fantastic news because it means those nerves are still intact and she has a great shot at getting her tongue function back.

We are so blessed to have such wonderful doctors at Mass General Hospital taking care of Victoria. Dr. William Curry is her neurosurgeon and his team for the surgery includes Dr. Eric Holbrook, who will prepare the pathways for the endoscopic removal of the tumor through her nose, Dr. Shannon MacDonald for radiation oncology, and Dr. Ganesh Shankar, should a spinal fusion be necessary.

We met with Dr. Curry this afternoon and he said the surgery will take place over either one or two days. If they need that second day, they will just keep Victoria asleep until they’re finished with the second surgery. After assessing everything once they resect the entire tumor, a third surgery could be possible but it’s not likely. It all just depends on what everything looks like once they start operating and can physically see the tumor and determine the consistency of the tissue.

We’ll go in early Monday morning and the surgery will likely last around 12 hours. Dr. Curry recommended that Travis and I walk around the city, have lunch somewhere, and try to keep ourselves as occupied as possible because it will be a long day of sitting and worrying if we don’t. We were so thankful for this advice because we had been agonizing over what wewere going to do while we waited. Dr. Curry has a very calm, reassuring demeanor and speaks directly to and not around Victoria. She very much appreciates this as she is well-educated on every aspect of her tumor, including post op recovery, and she had a lot of questions about that.

Keep us in your prayers as we begin this journey on Monday. Specific things to pray for are for an ideal tumor consistency, full recovery of nerve functioning, clarity of mind and easily accessible pathways for the surgeons, and the ability to get a gross total resection of the tumor.