Jaimie's Story: Part Three

"On May 8^th 2013, Jaimie had her 4 month MRI and with much sadness – a re-occurrence of the tumor showed up in that MRI.  We met with Dr. Tobias who told us that the tumor was very small (the size of a match head) but it had to come out.  After a couple of hours (in surgery) they called our cell phones to tell us that they were having trouble finding the tumor.  They were taking pieces of, what they thought was the tumor and were sending it to pathology for results and they came back that it was not the tumor.  After 8 hours of being in surgery, our Surgeon, Dr. Tobias came up to us and apologized – he said he couldn’t find the tumor.  Then explained to us how there is a GPS for the brain and it gets him close to the area of the brain where the tumor is, but once they open her up – the GPS for the brain no longer works as the brain is flooded with blood.  While he was speaking to us Jaimie was in having a post operative MRI to see if the tumor was still there. What started out as a small match head size tumor, came back after surgery as this long line. The tumor may have been squished during surgery.  While speaking to Dr. Tobias, they wheeled Jaimie up to the ICU unit from her surgery and MRI.  I fell to the ground and Dan nearly collapsed as well.  My beautiful daughter was once again had tubes coming out of her and her head was wrapped in bandages.  For some reason I think she looked worse this time.  Our hearts were broken.  The thought of my Jaimie having to go through surgery again was terrifying.  Jaimie remained intubated for the next almost 24 hours.  Dan and I sat around the bed just praying and crying not knowing what to do. We were then discharged on her 6^th day.  Home we went for her to heal and we returned two weeks later for Jaimie to have another MRI.  

This MRI showed that the tumor was in fact still there and none of it had been removed.  Dr. Tobias told us we had two choices.  Our first choice was to have Dr. Tobias do the surgery again – he said he was 95% sure he would be able to remove the tumor this time, because from the MRI he could tell that it was right next to the cavity where he had just done his work.  His concern was that if he could not find it, he would have to close Jaimie up, wheel her down to do an MRI (another location in the hospital) get the results from the MRI and wheel her back into surgery and open her up again…Our second option, was to fly to Memphis, TN to a hospital called LeBonheur.  They are affiliated with St. Judes.  The Dr. that trained our Dr. Tobias was in LeBonheur hospital and they also had an MRI in the operating room so that if he had a problem finding the tumor they could use the MRI right in the operating room.  Dr. Tobias said he was 98% sure that Dr. Boop (Dr. Tobias trainor) could get the tumor.  Dan wanted to stay at Maria Fareri as there was a strong sense of comfort with our hospital.  The thought of traveling to Memphis was too much for Dan to handle.  I felt that the 3% difference in odds of getting the tumor out was good enough for me to go to Memphis.  We were terrified – after much discussion, I looked at Dr. Tobias and said…… ”what would you do if it was your daughter?”  Dr. Tobias said he would go to Memphis.  That sealed the deal for me.  1 week later we were on a plane to Memphis, TN to meet Dr. Boop."