Beau's Surgery...

We got up at about 3:45 AM and got ready. Rocky had a great idea and told the entire family to wear camouflage because we were "going into battle" and we were "soldiers ready for the fight". So fun. Of course we all did.

We got to the hospital at 5AM. We arrived at the same time as Beau.

We wheeled him up to the check-in area and took about a hundred pictures. Would you expect anything less from me? We were all there...Me, John, Rocky, Romi, Dan,

Ian,

Melissa and her dad, Fred,

(her mom had to stay home with Piper),

Ryan, Beau's best friend,

and my mom and dad.

Lindsey, Melissa's sister, came a little bit later.

They called Beau's name and we headed up to the waiting room. This was where we had to say goodbye.

It was so hard. I knew he was going to be fine but it was horrible watching him being wheeled away down the long corridor knowing what he was going to have to go through. It was heartbreaking but Melissa got to stay with him, thank goodness.His beautiful noggin before surgery.

The surgery was supposed to start at about 8:45. We hadn't seen Melissa for a few hours and then she finally came in at about 10:30.

Ian and Romi sound asleep...

Ryan taking a snooze...

They surgery didn't start until about 11:00. They called about every two hours.

The first call came and they told us they were just opening his scull and they weren't quite to his brain yet. He was doing fine. The second call came and they told us they were done with the brain mapping and they were going to start the removal of the tumor. He did great with his brain mapping. I think the third call just told us he was doing fine and they were still working on him. I can't remember now if there were three or four calls. Every time the phone rang my stomach would sink. I can't even imagine what Melissa was going through. The last call came and they told us they were closing him up and the doctor would be in "shortly" to tell us how everything went. The 4 hour surgery took almost 7 hours. The doctor finally came in and told us everything went great. They were able to remove a tennis ball and 1/2 size of tumor from the left side of his brain. You can only remove portions from one side of the brain so the remaining tumor on the right had to stay but they got about 80% of the tumor on the left which was great because they originally thought they were only going to get about 60% of it...YAY!! They are going to run tests on the tumor and decide where they need to go from here to get rid of the rest. It should take about 5 to 6 days to get the test results back. The only problem they encountered was that he had a pretty full stomach and so he vomited and got some of it his lungs...not good. Because of this he had to be on a ventilator and they were worried about infection or pneumonia. They were going to have to breath for him until his lungs were clear. This was scary but Beau is a fighter so we knew he would be OK. They moved Beau to the ICU and told us we would be able to see him in a "little bit"...HA! I think it was about 8:30 PM when we finally were able to see him.

I am not going to pretend it wasn't hard. It was awful. Seeing him lying there with his head wrapped in gauze and tubes coming out of everywhere. The breathing tube was the worst. I hated seeing him this way. It made everything so real. My little, towheaded, rolly polly, blue eyed baby brother just had part of a tumor removed from his brain. How does this even happen? I lost it. It was so sad to see him like that. I wanted to scream and cry and kick and punch something (or someone). I wanted to hold him and kiss him and protect him. But I couldn't do any of those things. All I could do was hold his hand, gently, and tell him I loved him. I was in the room with my mom and I was so sad for her. You never expect this to happen to your little boy...yet here she was. It seemed so unfair. I am sure at that moment she would have done anything to take his place. Melissa, who had been so strong through all of this...crumbled. She just wanted to take his pain away. Ian couldn't bring himself to go into the room. I am glad because he didn't need to have that image of his brother in his mind. It was horrible. However, I know every day he will improve and get better and stronger. He is at the beginning of a long road of recovery but he will do it. And we, his family, will be here beside him to help him any and every way we can.

You have so many people that love you Beau...you have no idea. Rest and we will see you tomorrow. I love you little bro!