In your hands......

Wednesday 7.30pm the phone rings. "hi Derek , it's Griff (Prof of Neuro surgery) here" and in his calm and assuring way he proceeded to tell me that he had just consulted with Prof.Lawrence Recht (Prof of neuro oncology) and that Brads tumor is a low grade 2 Penial tumor . As i said before everything in this game changes and evolves as new findings present themselves and Griff tells me that because it is a low grade 2 (good news by the way) they believe that the best option will be to surgically remove it.

We had at this stage thought that they may have ruled out surgery. Griff asked whether we wanted to do it the next morning or next week. I said I would discuss it with Brad and get back to him. I got back to the table to tell Brad the good news and his head literally hit the table. Now you have to understand what this little 24 year old has been through in just over a month. He just did not want more brain surgery although he had full faith in Griffs recommendation. I told him to make the call once he had spoken to Griff who had been in surgery since 11am, and it was approaching 8pm. You simply have to be in awe of this man. We made the call just after 8pm and Griff answered and spoke to Brad and after a couple of minutes I heard Brad saying to him " okay Griff I am with you - let's take this thing out in the morning".
Instantly our gourmet meal turned into dough. We got the bill and went home - our home for the next couple of weeks anyway.

This type of reality will always present itself at some stage but no matter who you are or how big you think you are, when it does arrive at your doorstep you are never ready for it. It suddenly hit Brady squarely in the face and I could see a little dent appear in his incredible armour that you have been reading about in his prior blogs. That resolent air and mighty resolve had taken it's first beating. We had to pick him up!!. I once again confirmed that we came here on a mission. We found (thanks Stuart)the best Institution in the World with the best Professionals, with the best equipment and that he now needs to drive that car out of the pits and drive it with all the guts and determination that we now know he has.

He asked me one question before he went to bed "dad you trust Griff hey?". I said I have complete faith in him and he said "me too" and rolled over and went to sleep.

4.00am the alarm booms out. Brad is up to have a Skype session with Al before we have to leave for the 5 minute drive to the hospital. It is a different Brad to the one that hauled me out the bed two days ago. He was scared . The unknown is terrifying and he constantly asks for assurance that everything is going to be ok.

5.15am. We arrive at the hospital and you are immediately transformed into a world of calm and "hey we've done this before". Brad immediately relaxes and the cogs in this institutional machine begin to turn like clockwork. Brad checks into theatre and he is immediately whipped off for his MRI - thank goodness we left his fiduciaries in place. Anyone who does not know what a fiducial is go back a couple of blogs and you will see a pic of him. They look like baby bagels that are stuck all over his head apparently in an order that keeps all the digital technology aligned frOm one procedure to the next. We nearly took them off last night as we thought we were going down the chemo/ radiation route. You get unbelievable attention when you go into a restaurant with fiducials on your head and a dressing with a smidge of blood on it, on the back of your head.

Dr. Tian ( Neuro surgeon) explains the procedure to us and tells us that they may go in where they went in for his biopsy or they may go in at the back where they think the best angle of attack may be. They are going to open him up and then with microscopic instruments they will remove the tumor.

7am Dr. Lemmens (Prof of anesthesiology ) arrives us and tells us that he is looking after Brad today and once again without saying it you get a warm sense of knowing that Brad is in the best hands and that they have done this before. Just before that Myer Rosenthal ( Professor Emiritus, anesthesia) . Emiritus I think means that you don't ask him questions he's in charge. All this Professor attention just continues to assure and by the time they are ready to wheel our boy off he pronounces " I am ready for this".

7.15am on the button they wheel Brady off for the biggest challenge of his life waving as he disappears through the theatre doors. For Brady, time today will be compacted into an instant as 6 hours , or so, of the greatest professional care and skill gets compressed into a millisecond. For us the longest day of our lives has just begun. We set up base in the International Medical Centre which is a facility for foreigners that provides you with anything from food and drink to computer and phoning facilities. You get assigned a PA (Christiane)who chaperones you and keeps in comms with the theatre and the progress they are making on Brad.

11am Christaine gets an update and tells us that they actually started the procedure just before 9am having spent the first 1 3/4 hrs prepping him in theatre and all that stuff that we don't really know about. She says that they say it is going well and are making good progress.

So here I sit with my son on the table with his head open up. I sit with a, feeling I have never felt before - well certainly not to this extent. For the first time in my life I am feeling totally out of control in dealing with the situation that is going on right around the corner from where I sit and it involves my own sons life - AND I AM RELAXED !!! Well comparatively and I realize that there is another factor that we all take for granted and that we should never underestimate the power of it.

TRUST is an unbelievable thing. I have just put my sons life into the hands of a man that I met for the first time on Monday and today is Thursday - or is it? Who cares but that is the reality. It has made me ask the question - how many people do I really really trust - people you have known for years and then here, after just three days I trust this man explicitly - and his team. The reason for that is quite simple - Griff and his team have proven their credentials and demonstrate an amazing level of honesty and commitment to what they do and how they do it -something we are maybe all a bit guilty of.

The other side of that is when you also come to realize that you can't do everything yourself and that you have to be able to trust others. Every time you jump in a plane and travel half way around the world you jump in without interviewing the pilot and the rest of the crew - do you trust them or do you just take it for granted. I would guess the latter. But when it comes to your brain and your very own sons brain you do your home work, you rely on other people's opinion as we did with Stuart and Stephan and probably the guy I trust most in this world -Richard. And you commit to that belief in these guys and my last words to Griff on the phone last night was- " Griff he is in your, and your team's hands now and I trust you will bring him back to me in good health".

I sit here right now waiting for that moment with an absolute belief in their capabilities and Brady's determination.

As I was finishing that he was wheeled out of theatre and into ICU. We have just seen him and managed to get permission for him to speak to Al on the phone. She asked him how he was feeling and he said to her "I feel like I have just had brain surgery". So we have our Brady back but it is hard to believe that he has just had 6 hours of brain surgery. He is just unbelievable.

We have also just spoken to Griff who tells us that the cyst that was in the first ventricle was purely a cyst and totally benign and managed to remove it so that is good news. He managed to get quite a bit of the tumor out but some of it was embedded in the wall of the 3rd ventricle so it sounds like they will use cyberknife to get the rest out. We will know more about the rest of Brady's treatment tomorrow.

"To trust, you first need to be trusted ..it's in your hands...."