The Cathcarts

Brandon’s surgery went very well today.  He was at the hospital at 5:00 am for his surgery, which was scheduled for 7:00, but the actual cut time was 8:00.  He was in the OR until 12:00.  The removal of the tumor took three of those hours and the last hour was taking the bone graft from the hip and doing the fusion.  Dr. Carlstrom and Dr. Sherrill, both neurosurgeons, were quite confident that they got all of the tumor out.  They ended up only having to fuse one level of his vertebrae instead of three.  Their concerns with the surgery were how well his left arm was going to work because they had to leave the main nerve that runs down his arm "left out in the air for a while."  They also were concerned about his vision in his left eye because they were working very close to his vertebral artery, which feeds his visual cortex.  So far, his vision is fine, but he is having some "heaviness" in his left arm, so we will be watching that. He got up to his room around 2:00.  The move over from the cart to the bed was not a pleasant one.  We could hear him moaning from the hallway.  It took a good hour for his pain to get under control.  We then left for a while and went back this evening.  When we went back, he was sitting up in bed and looked better, although he said that looks can be deceiving.  He was able to stand up a couple times and walked to the bathroom and did very well.  He said that it felt good to walk.  So tomorrow we are hoping for more pain control and more activity and maybe home on Friday or Saturday.  Thank you to everyone for your continued thoughts, prayers, and words of encouragement.  The doctors say that if all goes well, he can be back to light duty at work in two weeks, but NO horses for six months.  We’ll see how well that goes.