Busy Day...

Sorry I am getting this on here so late! I guess time has gotten away from me today. We've been back and forth between Ryan's room and the lodge so many times that I forget you all are out there waiting for news of Ryan. He has had a good day. He slept for most of it, which is to be expected. He got up and walked around some this afternoon, and we had some visitors, which helped to break up the day.
We'll most likely leave Friday or Saturday for home. I guess our doctor had his days mixed up when he said Thursday...which is really fine because I don't think Ryan feels ready to leave quite yet. He loves to hear all of the comments left for him here, and he's actually felt up to taking a couple of phone calls today, but you have to catch him at the right time.
I'll be sure to post something earlier in the day tomorrow...until then!

Amazing Grace!

We got some more great news tonight! The doctor came by this evening and said that Ryan is doing so well they will let him go home this Thursday or Friday! He said that Ryan needs to be up and walking the next couple of days, but should definitely be ready to get home soon. How exciting! We are both ready for our own bed--it feels like we've been here a lot longer than just two nights.
Here's a quick update on Gabe, too...He is having a blast! He loves having his grandmas here to give him so much attention. He and Grandpa George and I played out on the playground for awhile this afternoon. He loves the swing and slide and just running around with anyone who will run with him. He is such a great kid! He adapts very easily to whatever new place he is in or new person is around. He loves to sing and really loves to dance. He is so much fun!
Ok, Ryan is ready to take a walk around the floor so I will close this for now. Good night!

Good Morning!

Things were pretty uneventful here last night...Ryan didn't sleep much, but that is pretty much expected in the ICU. I slept pretty well up in his room and George, Tori, my mom, and Gabe stayed over at the lodge. Ryan got another follow-up CT scan this morning. As far as I know everything is fine there. Ryan has sensory issues with parts of his right side--mostly his right leg, but the doctors feel like that will all work itself out and is just due to them messing around in his brain...(not their words :) He should be moving out of the ICU and back up to his room this afternoon, which we are all excited for.
Hopefully he'll be ready for some chicken noodle soup tonight, D!
Thanks for the comments and thoughts...it's nice to know you are all out there thinking of us.
Until later...

More Praises!!

Wow, Ryan looks great! As soon as we walked into his room this afternoon he got a huge smile on his face and started talking a mile a minute. I guess he had been awake for awhile, but they had taken him down for his routine post surgery CT scan and he was waiting impatiently for us to arrive after that. He is so excited and relieved and grateful that they took the tumor on his brain stem. He had been much more worried about that one than he had let on, and is feeling so encouraged to know that it is gone. The only lingering side affect of the surgery so far is that his speech is a little bit funny--I guess funny isn't quite the right word...it's more just that his voice sounds a little swollen. He is feeling great, though, and is so happy to have all of us in the room with him in the ICU. He'll still stay there overnight and then be moved to his room tomorrow.
The nurse that he has right now is a Christian, and remembers us from a surgery a couple of years ago, I guess right after Gabe was born. She says that Ryan hasn't been too cantankerous so far, so that is a praise, as well :)
A quick prayer request to throw in for the recovery process is that his blood sugar was a little high coming out of surgery, so they gave him a shot of insulin. They'll be monitoring it, but I guess it is a pretty normal side effect of surgery like that.
Anyway, I'm heading back down to see him, but thank you all for your prayers! They are so very appreciated and of course still needed.
With grateful hearts we are praising the Lord!

Sigh of Relief...

Praise God! Ryan is out of surgery as of about 1:00pm. His surgeon came to the waiting room, and said that everything went well! Surprise, though, they ended up taking out the tumor on his brain stem instead of the one on the cerebellum. It makes me so happy to know that that one is out of there! Dr. Lonser went in and drained the cyst from the cerebullar tumor, but decided to head straight for the other one, because he was pretty positive that it was the one causing the problems for Ryan. It was a difficult surgery, but he said that he is glad with the decision to take that one out. We won't know until Ryan is recovered if the other one is causing any symptoms still, so we could have some time before the next surgery.
Wow! This is still kind of hard to digest...I don't think any of us anticipated dealing with the brain stem today, so now we have to get through the next couple of hours wondering if Ryan will be OK when he wakes up. We should know pretty quickly if he is all right. Continued prayer is appreciated! He is in recovery right now and on his way up to the ICU after that so we should be able so see him around 3pm.
I'll post something later this afternoon...

No news yet...

Surgery could be up to 12 hours if they go for the second tumor...They said to plan for the longest scenario, so it could be a crazy day, or he could be out of there pretty quickly. No updates yet, but they took him back about 8am, so who knows when they actually started the surgery. It might be awhile.
Guess I'll add more later...

Heading to Bed...

Counting down to surgery...It's almost 11pm and we are heading to bed, but I figured I'd better put something on here tonight, not knowing when I'd have a chance in the morning...
They will be coming to get Ryan from his room around 7am--my mom and Gabe will head over here so that we can all walk down to the pre-op area together. I'm hoping for a good night's sleep on this pull-out bed-thing I'm on while Ryan gets the cushy hospital bed that conforms to his body as he sleeps...NIH is pretty cool :)
Ryan's parents will be driving up early in the morning--Tori didn't feel great today and didn't want to chance giving anything else to Ryan, so they decided to wait it out a bit.
We had a great dinner at Maggiano's Little Italy for our routine Last-Dinner-Before-Surgery night. Ryan is really using these surgeries as an excuse to get some good meals...Typical!
Well, I guess I'll get to bed. We're pretty wiped out and have a long day tomorrow. If we get an update during the surgery, I'll try to run up to Ryan's room and post something here. Otherwise, I'll just let everyone know when we're in the ICU and he's awake. Surgery will be 4+ hours. Keep up the praying...for the surgeons, for Ryan, for us in the waiting room...and especially for the small chance that they can get both tumors out at once and we can avoid a second surgery.
We love you all...until tomorrow!