"INCONCLUSIVE"

The day March 16, 2011 will not go down as one of my favorites days in my life. I was working and we had a fairly large patient load that day. Not a big deal, but my dad was going into surgery just above my office. He had developed a cyst, of pretty big proportions, on his face. It started behind his ear, but then grew in the past few months out towards his cheek. The doctor had tried to do a little biopsy in his office, but the test had come back "inconclusive". He decided it probably needed to come out, so my dad was scheduled for surgery.

I had a slight break in my morning, and I quickly ran upstairs to wish him luck before he went in. My mom and dad were in the waiting room and we talked a little about the surgery. They said the doctor had said the surgery would be anywhere between "one and five hours, but the doctor thought they could plan on two". I said, "Are you kidding, this is dad we are talking about, the surgery will be at least 5 hours". We all laughed, but knew darn well I was right about that. Well, I was able to talk to him for a really short time before he was called to the registration desk. That was my favorite part of the day. The lady called "Lester". My dad turned to my mom and I and said, "I'll get that straightened out real quick". He then approached the lady and said, "That's Jim by the way". Then I listened to my mom talk about how it is so lame when parents give their children a name, but then call them by a completely different name. For heaven sakes, call your child by the first name you give them so my poor mom will stop getting so upset. (Okay, so I am exaggerating quite a bit. But I know this does upset her because this is not the first time she has mentioned this.) I wished my dad good luck and went back to work.

At lunch, I went upstairs to get an update from my mom. They had taken him into the operating room and they were projecting the surgery to take about two hours. Again, I went back to work and finished my day. After work, I went back upstairs to see how things were going. At that point the nurse had been out to talk to my mom and had said the surgery was going to be a quite a bit longer, so I went over to physical therapy to have my neck worked on. (AHHH that was another highlight of the day). When my appointment was over, I went back upstairs to see how things were coming along. That was when things started to go downhill. Right after I had left, the doctor had come out of surgery to tell my mom that the cyst was not on top of the nerves in my dad's face, like they had thought, but rather underneath and intertwined in the nerves. The cyst was very attached to the nerves and looked malignant and was very "worrisome" to the doctor. They had cut a small portion of the cyst out and had sent it to pathology. About 30 minutes later, the nurse came out to inform my mom that the pathology report on the cyst had come back "inconclusive", there was that word again. The doctor was going to cut out a bigger portion and send more tissue samples over to pathology. It was very important for the doctor to find out if it was cancerous or not because that would determine the next step in the surgery. If it was not cancerous, they could leave a portion of the cyst attached to the nerve and just cut out what part they could. If it was cancerous, they needed to get ALL of it out. This would mean sacrificing the nerves in his face, which would leave the left side of his face paralyzed. His eye would not be able to open and close, his face would droop, and he wouldn't have use of the left side of his mouth. As you could imagine, my mom was a nervous wreck. Although, she really did compose herself very well. But we knew she was falling apart inside. Two hours later, a nurse came out to tell us the pathology report said it was NOT CANCEROUS!!! Yippee. My mom cried and told the nurse she wanted to kiss her. Well 6 1/2 hours after my dad had gone into surgery, it was finally over. The doctor came out and recapped the surgery for us. It had been a VERY DIFFICULT procedure, they had had to cut one small nerve and my dad would have some paralysis in his upper lip, they had to leave a portion of the cyst in- which they cauterized but that didn't guarantee it wouldn't come back, the initial pathology reports said benign- but the tissue had to undergo greater testing and we wouldn't know for sure for another 5-7 days, but other than that- the surgery was a success.

My dad was finally brought down into his room where he would stay the night. He was slightly alert, talking minimally and asking short questions, but not really opening his eyes. He looked very feeble and unsure. He asked what time it was and then asked how long the surgery lasted. When my mom told him, he said, "Oh no, what happened?". My mom then told him the details of the day. When she was finished he asked, "Are you being truthful? Are we going to be okay?". I about burst into tears. He seemed so scared. We told him everything was great, especially considering what could have happened. He seemed to relax and I left so he could sleep.

Was the surgery a success? At this time the feeling is "INCONCLUSIVE". The doctor feels confident that it will be, so we are going on faith. We hope that further pathology reports have good news, but for now, we wait.



Well if that wasn't enough drama in one day...

When I got home, I asked Gracie to shower so I could put her hair in curlers. I had just started doing her hair while she was trying to take out her earrings. She was really struggling to get the earring out of her left ear. I set the brush down and proceeded to help her. I noticed she had a big chunk of hard bloody puss on her ear. I put some rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball and started to clean her ear. I found another big chunk of that crap on the back of her ear as well. Then I realized what the problem was... THE BACK OF HER EARRING WAS EMBEDDED INSIDE HER EAR LOBE! The skin was growing over the top of it. I about threw up! My hands started shaking, and I was so upset. Normally, I am very calm in these types of situations, but after a long, stressful day- I was having a hard time staying in control. I was able to work a portion of the earring back out of her ear. Then I went and got Russ. I needed some steady hands. I explained what had happened and then told him what I needed him to do. He was able to thread a safety pin through the little hole in the earring back. This kept the back from being pulled all the way through her ear while we pulled out the post. Russ did it perfectly. We got the earring and it's back out of her ear and then I used about half a bottle of alcohol to clean it out. Russ was sick to his stomach when it was all over as well. Poor little Gracie was scared to death! I know she was in a lot of pain, but she was very brave as we took care of the problem. Today, her ear looks just fine. I am amazed that it wasn't purple or raging with an infection. So, ask me today if I am glad she got her ears pierced, and I will answer my feelings on the matter are "INCONCLUSIVE".