Monday, September 22, 2008

Jack Gescheidt here. I’m in debt to all of you for keeping up your psychic well wishes—prayers and thoughts of healing—for my Mom, Rae Russel. Call them what you will, I believe that “thoughts are things” and these things make a difference. If you believe this too, please keep clicking your heels.

One week after a first surgery, she is stable and improving slowly. Our neurosurgeon, Dr. Clothing (Kleider), was, in my opinion, cautiously optimistic today. That’s just about jumping up and down on the table for a man well schooled in being analytical and not prone to emotional outbursts. (That’s MY job.)

He says the most recent CT scan TODAY shows the 2nd surgery last week was successful—did I tell you all she went back in this past Thursday (Sept. 18th) for a second craniotomy because of bleeding/clotting from the first?…Well for those of you who missed this snippet of news, she did.

So now the clotting that was delaying her recovery (and ability to talk and open her eyes) has been cleared. With a little bit more time she may recover to where she was (although the Dr., like me, is a little surprised she hasn’t recovered more fully already, the fourth day after her second surgery).

Despite knowing I “should be” grateful for what we have—Rae’s not only not dead, she IS improving—I’m also just impatient and tired of waiting for her to get through the discomfort of being asleep so much. And I do mean hers, not ours, because we knows she wants to be alive and kicking, not sleeping her time away in a hospital bed.

And I’d prefer to converse with her again rather than just talk at her while she mostly just lays there. For those who know Rae, don’t think I don’t appreciate this exquisite irony. My own impressive capacity for talk (and writing) can’t compete with the source, dear ol’ Mom. Our “conversations” are more often her talking non-stop, and me waiting to get a word in, or just giving up and meditating on the nature of irritation. Oh how I miss that now, want her to talk a blue streak like in the good old 7 days ago.

But she is tough and stubborn and even at 83 wants to live so I’ll be damned surprised if she quits on us now. She’s recovering from the trauma of surgery at her age, her brain healing to release her from a fog of semi-consciousness. Her eyes stay closed and she doesn’t speak unless spoken to vigorously, and then only a word or two. Those few words are evidence her mind is still functioning. Karen reminds me that Andy, at age 40, was exhausted from his trauma, and slept prodigiously for months, so why should double-brain surgery on an octogenarian be different, even without the coma?

What’s especially disheartening is my Mom is still far less conscious and sharp and communicative than when she rolled the dice last week and went ahead with surgery to remove her large terminal brain tumor. I realize I could say, “just one week,” too.

And fyi, the nature of these cancerous beasts (Google “Glioblastoma” and hold onto your hat) is that even removing one, as has been done here successfully, provides no clean bill of health nor long life. But the statistics suggest, having removed the bulk of it, she’ll get more months to live. That is, of course, if she survives the surgeries. You all know that joke: The surgery was a success but the patient died. I know there’s humor in there, I’m just trouble getting the laugh out it right now.

All this hospital effort is worthless if she’s not able to talk and connect with us the way she loves to. But indeed she can any day turn the corner, start a fast recovery from the debilitating effects of having the inside of her head examined, twice, in one week at age 83.

I simply ask for you to hope for this too. It’s powerful non-Western medicine, this “on a wing and a prayer” stuff so I write this email to ask you to envision more talk, all-talk, nonstop talk for my Mom, Rae Russel, too.

Speaking of which…unlike me—and I bet you too—my Mom loves talk radio (NPR and such) for—get this—lulling herself to sleep. She leaves it on all night, has done this for decades. It’s her way of taming her active mind. What would be torture for me, keeping me awake and irritated, is her balm to keep her sleeping soundly. Go figure. So we’ve set up her continuous National Petroleum Radio in her hospital room for mental stimulation. What would kill me in a hospital nourishes her. Oh, mysteries of life.

I was with her on Friday and Saturday in Kaiser’s Redwood City hospital (south of SF by 30 miles). Andy & Karen visited yesterday, Sunday. Of course I took photos and some video too, but plan to share these only as she recovers so we can, as with Andy’s journey a decade ago, show and enjoy the progress she’s made, rather than bemoan our current predicament. She is, after all, alive; the surgery was successful; she is receiving loving 24/7 care from nurses in her NOU unit (Neurological Observation Unit, not ICU).

Thanks for reading all this, and thank you for your thoughts of her and for her, through the ethers.

Impatiently, lovingly yours,
Jack Gescheidt