The Gory Details

Just be warned that I am not a surgeon - therefore I do not have a large vocabulary and eloquent speech when attempting to explain the procedure. I may make up words and pretend to know what I'm talking about.

My Mom's tumor is a prolactin tumor located on her pituitary gland.

The surgeons were supposed to go in through her nose and remove the majority of a yogurt-type consistency tumor. Unfortunately, when they got in there, they were only able to remove about 2/3 of it because it was more of a rubber consistency. They removed some fat from her leg and actually used it to pack the holes in her sinus and such so that her spinal fluid wouldn't run out her nose - no big deal. Just common procedure. Gross?. . . read on to hear more details about that.



This picture was taken in her room while we waited for them to come wheel her off into the operating room. The wait was only about FIVE hours. . .

Here we are having a "party" in the surgical waiting area. By the time she got out of surgery, there was only one other family waiting with us. Earlier in the day, it was a madhouse.

By the time she got out of surgery, it was past nine. The kids were exhausted, but they just kept going. I finally snuck into a conference room and got Ashland to sleep. She got passed around while my dad and I went into the ICU to see my mom.

Poor thing. (I'm talking about my mom now.) Her nose was twice the size it normally is and her nostril was about three times as big. It hurt just looking at her. For her sake, we didn't take any pictures.

After we got the report from the surgeon, which was - word for word - "Everything went fine. You can see her now." Which definitely was not exactly what we were hoping to hear after waiting for over four hours - when the surgery was supposed to last two. When he walked away, we were shocked. That's it? Then, come to find out - it didn't go "fine" - they didn't even get it all. Don't get me started.

We had plenty of phone calls to make after it was all said and done.


So, she will be heading back to the University of Utah Hospital for a replay of the whole ordeal. Yeah.

As far as post surgery is concerned, she is still very tired, and easily worn out. She has headaches a lot - but that's nothing new for her. She's been a trooper.

Oh yeah, about the fat in the nose thing. So, I guess a side effect of the whole using fat to clog a hole thing - you get to not only SMELL but TASTE nasty, rancid lard for several weeks following the procedure. YUMMY!