The vanquishing of Ernie, the icky cervical spine tumor. Unbeknownst to us in recent years, a most unwelcome guest has been growing inside Renee’s cervical spine. By inside I mean within her spinal cord, forcing that all important bit of Renee’s athletic build to expand around it. She has weathered neck pain for near on a couple of years, dealing through physical therapy, yoga, pilates, acupuncture. But it started to become critical in the last months, not just in pain but beginning to compromise feeling in her extremities and at last, strength in her left hand. Her chiropractor proscribed an MRI, with the expectation of seeing a compromised disk or something. He took one look at the results and said we needed to show this to a neurosurgeon. We called out to some friends, and a radiologist I know from grad school at Duke, Shannon, basically ordered me to get Renee to the ER and not wait at all. Like an obedient little husband, that’s what I did, met her at Stanford ER. Like, what would you do if told your wife had a spinal tumor? Um… not something I have a lot of experience with. Little did we know this started us in on a fast paced series of events leading to her having the best neurosurgeon around removing this tumor in a six hour surgery Friday afternoon. Cutting to the chase, the surgery was *very* successful. Omg the relief was beyond comprehension. There aren’t words within my command to describe. But Renee, when finally told this as she drifted in back from anesthesia, cried for the happy news. She named her tumor Ernie, and while we didn’t know him by name for long, we were glad to see him go. He didn’t leave any mess behind inside, of that we are extremely happy. Pathology reports aren’t back yet, that will be another week, but it is an ependymoma. Ernie the ependymoma is gone. All of him. That’s good because there’s no radiation or chemo necessary. But he has the annoying habit of coming back, so there’ll be some MRIs at intervals, and if necessary, radiation to keep him or his progeny out. Got it Ernie, neither you nor anyone in your family are welcome here (or anywhere near the DeAngelis family, thank you very much)! The consequences: Renee’s neck pain and various other symptoms were much milder than they might have been if she wasn’t such a strong athlete and diligent caretaker of her body which, over the years, has objected at times to the regimen of skiing, climbing, kite surfing, running, biking, et cetera. I think I’ve forgotten a couple of sports. Maybe that’s meant we didn’t uncover Ernie until later than we might have but he was still relatively small (though, for where he was, bloody huge!) AND it means that she will recover more quickly, much more quickly than your average blob. She was already standing up strong yesterday, looking forward to her walking today, and walking out of this here wonderful hospital soon. But as my brother-in-law rather wisely said, it’s not a linear path, there will be ups and downs. She has lost feeling in her legs. Well, now as of today as spinal cord tissue swelling is still increasing, thanks to manipulation to get in and kick Ernie out (and despite the steroids and diverse cocktail fed into her) most skin sensation from below her chest. That will return (they say) as swelling subsides. Some will be soon, some will take, potentially, years. Renee’s spine: c5 to t2 was fused to support where bone was removed. Most mobility comes from above this area and the wings are not so necessary for mobility. What motions will their loss inhibit or challenge? We don’t know yet. Mobility wise, the resident doc who just visited says the loss in neck mobility (8-10% in a vertical plane he estimated) is the sort of thing most wouldn’t notice, but an athlete might. Well, we have an athlete here, she will notice, but we’ll work with it. She will be charging (though she’s snoring right now). That little ridge on the back of your vertebrae (lamina), well, Renee now has a few less of em. They had to step aside to make a door for Ernie to be booted out. She’s got a lovely little hardware set. I’ll post some pictures of xrays. For some reason I think of it kind of like a shiny new Black Diamond carabiner rack pack - bit.ly/15uhVQ7 - though hopefully lighter still and probably a tad more expensive. I hope the screws and rods have cool anodized colors though I’ll never see em. She has full motor function, and has good proprioception (ie can tell where her extremities are in space) so should be able to start walking today, and start climbing tomorrow? Maybe we’ll wait a few more days at least for the climbing part. Max swelling is about 3 to 5 days post-op, tomorrow through Wednesday. I expect we’ll be back home in the next few days. Physical therapy hopefully will start today. We might have to send some of Jenni’s macaroons off to the PT folks to get her on their agenda on a Sunday. Yeah, Renee will be charging. I think this means her kite surfing season is over this summer. Climbing trip plans this fall? No. But damnit we’re going to have an epic ski season, even if it starts late. Thank you *so* much for all who have expressed such love and support. We are the incredibly fortunate few who can get such love and care and treatment, not something to take lightly. Heck, we hardly had time to realize how life threatening this was. Reality is that there’s not much data on how these things heal, because this hasn’t even been possible for very long. Nurse said to me that this is one of the most painful surgeries around, but Renee is hanging tough. As our bro Aron said, spot the landing and stick it. She stuck it, and will keep on. To Renee (and to me) the community of friends and family near and far has been the raft of life support. If you are far away and want to reach out to Renee, send pictures of happy dogs, always guaranteed to bring a smile to her face.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 16:52:32 +0000
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