Some info about the Wada...

Well, the Wada went fine. It was much more involved than Andy and I expected. We were not allowed to stay with him, as we had promised him. This wouldn't have been so bad (who am I kidding?!), but for part of the Wada he would find himself unable to speak and unable to understand speech. The doctors warned him that this might be a bit frightening, but they assured him that he would be fine - and Andy and I reassured him that we would be there, we would keep him safe and there was nothing to worry about. He went under anesthesia, which was unexpected as well. It made a lot of sense to put him under for the insertion of the catheter in his artery because there is no way that he would have stayed still for it. Even though it was a good decision it was still unnerving...."What do you mean you're putting him under AND we can't stay with him?!" It was all fine in the end, but we were very unprepared. The doctors were all so sweet and spoke in such calm and soothing voices with him, very reassuring for us. We were able to stay with him until he was under. He panicked for a moment when the mask first went over his nose and mouth. Then he relaxed some. We were able to stay with him for this part but as soon as he went under, the anesthesiologist, who only minutes prior used words like "pee pee" (as in: "you might feel some pressure in your pee pee (another catheter)" and "Mommy and Daddy will be right there when you wake up") was now ALL BUSINESS. He said to us, "Now you have to leave." Like: "NOW, RIGHT NOW, MOVE YOUR DOTING ASSES. This is MY operating room now and I only have MINUTES, SO MOVE MOVE MOVE!" I stuttered, and fumbled, and quietly squeaked, "He's out now? But I didn't really get to say goodbye." I can't say for certain what Andy did, I was just so worried about tripping over some equipment or pulling out some vital cords that were attached to Lincoln...talk about clumsy, klutzy, shaken and disoriented.

Then we waited, it was practice for the future surgeries. After an hour one of the doctors came out to tell us that they had just finished the first part of the procedure. For this part they injected dye into his brain and took pictures of his blood vessels (thin blood vessels = brain damage in that area). They were now waking him up so they could then put one half of his brain to sleep at a time and then ask the awake side to answer questions and perform tricks, all in an effort to see what side of his brain controls what function - which will provide much needed data for the ultimate question (s):

FULL HEMISPHERECTOMY or a RESECTION

and

ONE STAGE SURGERY or TWO STAGE SURGERY?