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...