Sorry to disappoint you, but I said GRAY’S, not GREY’S.

This is strictly a boring anatomy lesson, not the latest gossip on your favorite Thursday-evening debauchery drama.

In case you were wondering where Annie’s tumor is located, its in the 4th Ventricle, which is a fluid-filled space next to her cerebellum….both labeled in this picture I stole from Wikipedia. Click on the picture if you want to see a larger version. And I’m sure you want to.

For the surgeon to remove the tumor, he would have to go through her cerebellum via an incision in her neck.

In case you were wondering. 😉

Being the Amateur Physician that I am, educated at the University of Google, I have been doing some reading on melatonin, tryptophan, the pineal gland, sleep, and how it all relates to brain tumors, and came across this picture and thought I’d share.

After all my hours of research over the past three years I’m pretty sure I’m almost qualified to treat any and all disorders of the brain at this point.

Call my office to schedule an appointment.

The Big Blue House: Your one-stop shop for boutique hairbows, financial advice, and treatment of brain disorders.

Yeah, I know I said I didn’t want to talk about it.

I didn’t mean that I don’t want to talk about it……I just don’t want to hear about it, unless of course you agree with me, and if that’s the case, we can talk about it all day long.

Or if you have information that may help me do what I’ve already decided to do, i.e., strengthen Annie’s immune system and pray for healing, then by all means, pass it along.

I am nothing if not fair and unbiased.

I got a really sweet email today from an old friend encouraging us in our decision.

It was such a relief to read her words, because though I’ve been able to articulate precisely why I hope to NOT EVER DO surgery, I haven’t been able to come up with an advantage to DELAYING what may be inevitable anyway.

My friend gave me a good reason. Here’s her email:

I know you don’t want to talk about this anymore, but I just wanted to encourage you. I know how exhausting the last few months have been, and you have lived through them with such grace. You have been such a picture of faith. I also wanted to tell you that we made a decision to wait on surgery for (her daughter) last year, and it was the best thing we have ever done. It does look like she will be having another major surgery this summer, but in one year the surgeon changed his mind about which procedure to use. The side effects of the surgery we are now looking at are so much less scary than what we were facing a year ago. We went from looking at a surgery where in every study several children had died afterwards from obstructed sleep apnea, to a surgery that has a risk of respitory dysfunction for a matter of days. Big change – and we are so grateful for it.

So there’s my reason.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before!

EVEN IF brain surgery should be UNAVOIDABLE, probable, likely, and inevitable, I would still rather wait and delay it as long as possible.

Surgery techniques change and improve every single year.

Doctors receive new training and education every single year.

Procedures become less and less invasive as technology becomes more and more advanced.

That’s a good enough reason for me.

Plus, by this time next year, I may have read enough on the internet to know how to do the surgery myself, here at home.

You never know.

And if that inspires you to pray continually for Annie’s healing, then I have done my job.