A Quick Update on Bobbie

February 3rd, 2009

Greetings all,

First, thank you for the many prayers for Bobbie. Please keep them going/coming.

Yesterday was a long and tiring day. We made it safely to Topeka for the MRI and a friend of Bobbies in the medical field that knows his way around St. Francis arrived shortly after we did and before the MRI. Which turned out to be a blessing as the double Valium dose pretty much made her limp. The MRI people were "little" and would not have been able to handle lifting her. Tracy and Robert were able to assist with getting her into position. She did move some during the MRI but the neurosurgeon said with her tremors he could not fault her that. The images were clear enough for their purposes and he went forward with his evaluation, findings and suggestions. During his check-up with her he detected a weakness in her left side. The tumor is on the right frontal lobe just past the forehead to mid top of the head and from the hair part to the right about half way towards the ear. She thought her brain looked like lasagna. The nurse had to give her coffee to wake her up, and it did, so that the doctor was certain she understood everything. The mass is about the size of a golf ball and has no tentacles. One core area at the bottom of the mass otherwise it looks smooth. This is a good thing from what the surgeon indicated. She has been put on dilaudid and he thinks she is having mini seizures and plus seizures are a possible result of any type of brain surgery. She will stay on it until at the least six months after the surgery.


The soonest date available for both doctors was Feb. 24th. Dr. Eberling will be her attending surgeon and Dr. Fritz will be the assisting surgeon. Dr. Fritz operated on my husband in Dec. of 2007. This seemed to make Bobbie happy and I have to admit I was glad to hear he will be with her too as a trust has already formed with him as he helped Chuck. The surgery is scheduled for February 24th. They are going to try for sooner but we are to assume at this point that is the date. The kids have no medical insurance and thus far the type of treatment they have received I have been ashamed of. We are told the hospital here never should have let her leave the E.R. when the ct scan showed a tumor. No one seems to understand why she was continually given meds and more meds, psychotropics and pain pills, without further tests ordered before now. (That is all said and done and we must move forward.) At St. Francis they were treated with kindness, respect and told that "the non-insurance situation can be dealt with at a later date, first we've got to concentrate on getting Bobbie better". I highly recommend this hospital as twice now I've had a loved one there for evaluation and received exemplary care both times.


Bobbie is barely able to write her name let alone keep a journal, however I did purchase her a small notebook and decorated it up a bit. I added some quotes, stamped flowers and stickers throughout and we used it yesterday to write notes in and dates, meds, etc. Robert and I will continue this for her throughout this ordeal so that she will have something to look through in later years and see what all she went through that she may not remember. She was going to show Raven all the things in the notebook today. I expressed to my granddaughter last night that it is mommies journal, not hers. She is a scared little girl as they have now told her what is happening with her mommy. I guess the journal was more for me in a way as it was a distraction on Sunday night and Monday morning while waiting for the time to pick her up and head to Topeka.

Please continue to pray for Bobbie and pray that God will be guiding the surgeons hands....

Many Hugs,
Tess