The maze after diagnosis

We are home, and settling into life as it is now, day by day. We have begun the adventure into the medical maze. It seems no matter how much you know about the system, you are still at a loss when you are thrown into it from this angle. I spent 4 hours on the phone just scheduling appointments with the doctors, physical therapy and speech therapy . We spent 3 hours at the Social Security office just finalizing the disability applications that had been previously completed on line. There is no normal now. We have everything written down on a calendar so we know when, where and what time to go to the next appointment. We are both a little overwhelmed but we are making it.

Marc has not lost his since of humor. When Annie, our 3 1/2 year old granddaughter asked him what was wrong and why he was in the hospital his reply was "I have brain damage". A little sick humor there. I am sure that Annie has gone to day care and told her friends and teachers that her Papa is brain damaged!

Thank you all for your prayers, calls and e-mails, they are both needed and appreciated. I will update the Blog again later this week.

Home and loving every minute of it!

God, it is good to be home. No matter how sick you are, you cannot rest in a hospital. Marc is adjusting as am I (Marcia is writing the blog at this time, Julie has done a wonderful job but will be out of pocket for a while). If you want to e-mail Marc & I - my e-mail is marciab@swbell.net . We are grateful for all of the friends and for the prayers. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Home at last!

At 9am today Marc said he was leaving the hospital by 10; there was no doubt that he would. Marcia had the Dr. paged to come in to write his discharge orders and, all said and done, they didn't get out of there until 12:30pm. Steve had gone to the house and mowed the yard so it was ship shape when they got home.

The pathology report came back this morning and the news isn't good, the report confirmed that the lesion is Astrocytoma Grade IV, typed as Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). Marc will start radiation and chemotherapy in about 3 weeks, it will be 5 days a week for 4 to 8 weeks. They will start outpatient speech and physical therapy next week. They will be busy scheduling all of the followup Dr. visits for the following week. We are all going to try to live as normal of life as we can and are optomistic that the treatment will be effective and that Marc will have few side effects from the treatment.

The blog entries will be once or twice a week now that we are home from the hospital but if anything changes we will post it. Marc, Marcia, Steve and Julie thank all of you for your support and prayers and ask that you continue to keep us in your daily prayers.

Post Op Day 3 Continued

We are finally in a room. The first thing Marc did was get into the shower, he said he liked Marcia's sponge baths but enough was enough. LOL. We are in room 4245 at Memorial Hermann in The Woodlands. Marc is hoping to get out and go home tomorrow. We are not so sure and are thinking maybe Sunday would be better.

We still haven't heard anything about the biopsy, so we continue to hurry up and wait! More later . . .

Day 3 Post Op

Not much to report yet today...Marc was able to get a good night sleep (or the best you can in a hospital) after Marcia gave the "orders" to leave him be for the night. She was awoken this morning to Marc up and moving furniture around the room at 5:15 AM! He is ready to go, claiming that if he isn't moved from ICU by 3 PM, he is walking out! Of course we won't let that happen but he is ready to get the show on the road! They have decided that he is strong enough to move to a "normal" room instead of the step down unit which is great news! There is a possibility that he could be going home in the next few days and we are all looking forward to that!

Still no news on the biopsy. We hope to have news today, but it may be the beginning of next week.

That is about it for now - we will post more later as there is more to post.

Post Op day 2 Continued

Today was a frustrating day for Marc. His Dr. was in first thing this morning and told him that he was doing so well that he could be moved from ICU to the step-down unit so that he could still be monitored but get up and around more and even walk in the hallways. He was excited about getting out of this room! The problem was they didn't have any available beds so as of 9 p.m. he is still in ICU.

Today he got up and put on his sweat pants and T-shirt, walked around the room, then the halls with PT and then decided that he needed to wash his hair and get it trimmed around the surgery site. The sink in ICU is like one in an airplane, he bent over and with a little help from Marcia got his hair washed. Then Marcia trimmed his hair so the 'comb-over' effect was gone.

He has had a great nurse the last 2 days, she would change his dressing and personalize it. The first said "This is my brain on drugs. Any questions?" and the one after the shampoo and trim said "Bull's Eye" with an oval marking around the length of the incision. She had comebacks as fast as Marc could give them out. She came in once when Marc was taking off his heart monitor and BP cuff and asked him where he thought he was going; when he told her that he was going to walk out to the lobby she firmly reminded him that he was still in ICU. She did however, concede and walked with him so he could walk Steve, Julie and Marcia to the elevator.

He has now been up for over 15 hours and when Marcia asked if he was ready to go to bed he said no. Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

Day 2 Post-op

Marc continues to do well. He has been sitting up in the chair since 5:50 am, walked with little assistance of physical therapy and is back on a regular diet. He looked at his incision today and said that he looked like half a 'Frankenstein'. I think he would look good with his head shaved but thats a big step. Marc has asked that I attach a picture of his incision - don't be frightened, but it is real! It looks like he will be bumped out of ICU today and moved to the regular rooms, then a couple more days, we think, before he is discharged to home. We are still waiting on the pathology report but hope to have it by Friday.

Great report

It's 10:54 and the neurosurgeon just left - the news is good. The MRI looks like they got all of the tumor although he suspects that there are micro-tumors in the swollen brain tissue around where the tumor was.This means that Marc will need treatment with radiation and chemotherapy to give him the best chance of beating this tumor. The pathology reports might be in on Friday; so we are still just waiting for the final reports. We will be meeting with oncologists when the final path report is back to develop a plan of action.

There is still no immediate plan to remove the Pituitary tumor as it is most likely benign; the neurosurgeon said that we would tackle that one at a later date after we know more.

Marc may be moved from ICU to a regular room tomorrow and have some intensive physical, occupational and speech therapy. We have no clue as to discharge date from the hospital yet. If he works as hard in the next few days as he did today, I imagine that he will be discharged sooner than expected. All of the Docs were impressed with his remarkable attitude, humor and determination.

More tomorrow. . .

One day post-op and he's walking in the hall and flirting with the nurses

Well it didn't take Marc long to convince the nurse to get him out of bed. Once he was up in the chair he was ready to go walking but impatiently waited on the physical therapy staff to get here. He's been out of bed all afternoon and is eating a regular meal sitting up in the chair. His mood is good but he is quite feisty. The Dr. still hasn't made rounds so we still do not know the MRI results. More tomorrow.

Up, up, and away (or so he wishes)!

Thought you might like to see how he looks this afternoon OUT OF BED and in his chair. What you don't see is his nurse standing behind Marcia while she takes this picture!

No word from the doctor yet so we will update again later. I will say that I am amazed at how well he is speaking, walking (yes he is up and moving), and his quick tongue (as usual)! We are truly thankful for how well he is doing.

Thank you for all of your kind words of support, we are sharing them with him as they come in and he is enjoying hearing from all of you!

Wednesday - day after surgery

Well, we just got to the hospital this morning and Marc is asking for a hamburger (with jalapenos) and french fries. The nurse keeps teasing him to take it slow, but that isn't working for him! Marcia said he woke up first thing and said "let's get out of here!" He got a few solid hours of sleep last night, probably the first since this whole ordeal started and this allowed Marcia to sleep as well (also much needed). Marc is talking well, moving too much, and ready to run out of here as soon as someone turns their head!

We have decorated the room with pictures of the kids, so if there are any you want to add, just email them to me at jbudge18@charter.net.

We are waiting for the MRI results from this morning and will update you later this afternoon when we hear something.

Surgery Day - Tuesday, October 21st

Surgery was scheduled for 11 AM today. At 9:30 they came and got Marc from his room to take him down to pre op. What seemed like hours later, it was time to go. The surgery started around 1:30 (after 2 hours of prep time) and lasted about three hours. We were called to meet with the doctor who reported that he was waking up and doing well. He was optimistic that he had removed all of the tumor. They would be sending a tumor tissue sample off to pathology and it will be a few days before we hear the results. In the meantime, Marc is resting well, a little fiesty (but whats new), and seems to have good movement in his right side. He is talking (and cussing) and we are all hopeful.

Tomorrow is a new day and they will do an MRI in the morning. We will start talking about the game plan and what course of action to go from here, but for now we are thankful that God watched over him during surgery and the surgeon didn't remove the humor gene!

The MRI...

Sunday mid-day the MRI was done. That evening the Neurosurgeon came by to let us know what was going on. The news was not good; Marc has two tumors, one on the left side of his brain and one on his pituitary gland. The one on his left side of his brain appeared malignant and surgery needed to be done as soon as possible. The tumor is the size of a golf ball and is in an area that affects speech, memory, emotion, and some mild right side weakness. Surgery is scheduled for Tuesday.

In the meantime, they started him on steroids to beef him up and help shrink the tumor. He laid restless in bed, down for the first time in his life and not happy about it to say the least! Always the kidder, all of the nurses left the room with smiles on their faces and laughing as Marc teased and joked with them.

The steroids seemed to really help as his speech improved some and he definitely had more energy. On Monday, he was able to get out of bed for a good portion of the day to get some pressure off the back(side)!

A restless night sleep was ahead while waiting for the surgery...

How this came about...

Guess I need to start by bringing everyone up to speed as I am sure everyone has heard parts of the story but maybe not everything...

On Wednesday, October 15th Marc woke up not feeling really well. As he would say "he was just not right". By Wednesday evening, he made a doctors appointment for the next day. The symptoms were slurred speech, slight ride side weakness, and trouble seeing. At first glance, the doctor assumed that he had a stroke and ordered additional testing for early the next week.

Friday night, all seemed well at The Budge house with Annie spending the night as usual. Tea parties and movies were on the agenda. By Saturday, he was really struggling to speak without a slur and was worn out.

Saturday evening while watching a movie at home, Marc had a seizure which affected the right side of his face. At that point, it was time to go to the hospital. In the ER, they ran a CT scan which showed that something was there. He was admitted to the ICU for observation, to control his blood pressure, and to wait until the next day to have the MRI.