Caitlin is doing great after her surgery

Caitlin is really doing well after her unexpected brain surgery on February 6. For all the details, check out the blog for her. She starts her physical therapy tomorrow, but I don't expect her to need much; although she is still a little unsteady and tires easily, she is getting around really well since she doesn't have the tumor affecting her coordination and causing headaches and nausea any more. She had the best care possible from the surgeons, nurses and everyone else at Mott Children's Hospital, and we are eternally grateful. Here are MRI pictures from about the same plane of section before (left) and after (right) the tumor was excised. Notice the line where her surgeon entered the cerebellum to remove the tumor and how the ventricle that was pinched shut was able to open for fluid to flow again.

She has her post-operative appointment with the surgeon Friday and we hope to get the final pathology report on the tumor. Although they are fairly confident that it was a pilocytic astrocytoma, we cannot be totally sure until we get the report.
We have also been so blessed in prayers from so many of our friends and family-I don't know what we would have done without all of their support. Last night my friend Melissa and her son Henry stopped by to visit and she brought some of her amazing seafood chowder for dinner. Caitlin and I both had two bowls of it-delicious! Caitlin should be back up to full strength very soon. She has received some of her school assignments and should get the rest of them this week. Her school actually has next week off for mid-winter break, so she will have another full week to recover before she returns to school and has to maneuver all of those steps (4 floors-her school is huge!).