Dads Cranial Surgery

Dear family and friends of Wayne:

Many of you may already know this by now, but Wayne is having cranial surgery tomorrow a.m. He has been experiencing headaches for about a month after a short bout with the flu. Also, his personality and behavior seemed to alter. He became weak and unable to exercise as usual, slept a lot (naps during the day, unusual for him), generally grumpy and much more quiet and almost disconnected/disinterested from life. Some friends thought he was depressed.

During an annual physical this morning which Cate went along to with him, the Dr. ordered an MRI which showed he has a sub-dural hematoma. There are significant pools of blood sitting between his brain and his skull (that’s the good news---not IN the brain, but BETWEEN the brain and the skull). The more disconcerting news is that the origin, usually head trauma, is unknown in his case. After MRI, cat scans, chest x-rays, blood tests, they decided to operate. Looking at the cat scans with the neurosurgeon and hearing how he will go about his work was reassuring. Tomorrow the neurosurgeon will bore 3 – 4 thumbnail size holes into the sides of his skull to drain the blood out. The holes should heal quickly with slight indentations that won’t show under Wayne’s nice head of hair. Or maybe the head will be shaved. We’ll see how funny he looks with big empty patches.

The surgery is at 8:20 and should last about 40 minutes. We will know more info in late morning and will send out another email tomorrow night. After looking at the cat scans and doing the neurological exams, the doctor was very impressed with how healthy Wayne seemed to be. They can tell the blood has been increasing in size for probably at least a month.

The risks are the usual ones for surgery – infection, bleeding, stroke, clots, spinal fluid leak. But we have good faith in the surgeon’s experience and that the angels looking after him the past month will continue to do so. He has been doing fine today, seemed almost better than the past month, and describes the experience best as being surreal.

Prayers are welcome!

Cate