Our time at the hospital

Chad has been home from the hospital for a week.

It has been a really rough week.

I have some intense pictures I could show

but I am not sure how Chad would feel so I

guess you have to come visit if you want to see them.

We have had some setbacks this week which are a

huge bummer. More later on that.

Chad resting...

This is the Med students. He was interviewed by one

of them and then presented to the others.

The start of our 3 hr drive home. We didn't make

him wear his seatbelt.

I also suffered a pulled muscle from sleeping on

the "lounge chair" at the hospital.

This resulted in my own visit to the ER in the middle of the night. 

The pain has been incredible.

So I am taking some strong medication to help,

this had made an even more difficult week for Eric.

Sorry Babe :(



What a difficult couple of days...

Each day as the surgery drew closer my emotions were on the surface.

It was difficult to talk about the upcoming surgery to anyone
 because the tears would start.

Monday night on our way to Seattle it was all I could do
 to not let Chad see me cry.

We let him listen to what ever he wanted to on the radio,

we changed the channel if he didn't like the song,
 even if we had just changed it.

Driving to the hospital in the morning was just as hard.

We checked in and they took him back to prep. Then he started to get nervous.

Dr. Backous came and talked to us after about 5 hours,
then Dr. Mayberg. They said the surgery went great.
The nerve that the tumor had grown into should look like a rope.

Thick and round, it was flat like cellophane.

The nerve that indicated weather or not he could have a cochlear implant looked great,

It however didn't respond well to the stimulation. Dr. Backous said
 he would not be able to hear out of that ear.

We had lost our 20% chance of keeping his hearing. And

It looked like the nerve would not respond well to the cochlear implant.

It was devastating, no matter how much we tried to prepare

 ourselves there was no preparation good enough.

Eric and I both burst into tears.

I couldn't stop crying.

We got to see Chad about 3:30 pm. They finally got him into intensive care

 and we could go see him. When we got up to the ICU

the nurse said he wanted to see us, and to please touch him

when we got there.

 It was good to see him, he was in good spirits and wanted to know
 "when he could go home."

He also didn't like the catheter.
He says he can hear fuzzy out of that ear.

 Is this a good sign?

We shall see...

The past week has been full....

Chad went to Provo to hang out with these two guys

Shawn & Leemur. (and a few others!)

We hooked up the Honda and off we were headed home.

Then... we had a minor accident... The wind was strong and we were

going around a corner and the Honda moved over and

crunch... went the light.

Tonight was week 8 of Sign language class.

The last one of this series.