Tough day
The surgeon was very nice, direct and to the point with a decent dose of humanity. We arrived late. The car is having problems again despite going to the garage twice. (Why does it always work perfectly when it goes to the garage and then start playing silly buggers again the moment we get back home?) After finally getting the car going it decided to stall on us throughout the trip to the hospital. And of course we enjoyed bumper to bumper traffic, partially due to the Car Show and partially due to the fact that we live in Paris. Luckily for us the surgeon was running behind in his consultations as well. So the long and the short of it is that he has scheduled me for surgery on 15 November.
Upcoming surgery
Step One
Liver: He'll remove the tumors on the left lobe of my liver (the least damaged lobe). He'll clamp the right lobe to reduce the blood flow.
Peritoneum: Depending on what he finds he'll clean out the infected area or he'll refer me to a specialist. I'll go over the possibilities of this part of the operation later in this entry.
Colostomy: He put my colon back together again "de-colostomisation" but to allow that area to heal properly he'll give me a new, smaller one (small intestine this time) which he'll put back together during step two.
Expected hospital stay: 15 days
Step Two(2-4 months after step one)
Liver (the left side of which would have grown; the right side of which would have shrunk): He'll lop off the sick part (probably all of it from what I understand) of the right lobe.
De-colostomisation: He'll put my guts back together again an they'll finally remain inside my body!
Peritoneum problems: This "bag" surrounds the intestines and the reproductive organs. If the tumors in the peritoneum are not operable and present a risk for my reproductive organs, the surgeon may have to remove everything.
Stats:
5% chance of not surviving the operation of 15 November
30% chance of complications. The complications (eg. infection) would lead to a longer hospital stay.
I was quite strong during the appointment (the vampires even took blood!). An hour or so later, however, there were a few tears. I am human so that's ok. I've been through a tough situation like this before (11 1/2 hours brain surgery following a car accident in the USA, 1992) so I know that there are some things that a surgeon has to say to you (or your family, 1992) because the possibilities exist. The difficulty is knowing the difference between what they have to tell you and what is more relevant for your particular case. There is the fact that the surgeon I saw today wasn't able to consult the post-op report from my surgery in December because it wasn't in my file. So a number of crucial elements were left vague namely where the peritoneum tumors were seen during the first intervention. This of course will have a significant impact on the whole peritoneum/reproductive organs issue. I called my day hospital service upon leaving the surgeon this morning and asked them to fax it straight over to him. I've got chemo tomorrow so I'll ask for my own copy.
Then we headed off to the tax office to sort out a problem they had kindly sent us a letter about. Although we had a tough time finding the place the staff there were very helpful and the whole administrative process was surprisingly quick.
We swung by to see a friend very briefly on our way home and since we've been back the phone hasn't stopped ringing. Anna's staying over with some other friends tonight which means Froggy and I can cuddle up just the two of us.
Upcoming surgery
Step One
Liver: He'll remove the tumors on the left lobe of my liver (the least damaged lobe). He'll clamp the right lobe to reduce the blood flow.
Peritoneum: Depending on what he finds he'll clean out the infected area or he'll refer me to a specialist. I'll go over the possibilities of this part of the operation later in this entry.
Colostomy: He put my colon back together again "de-colostomisation" but to allow that area to heal properly he'll give me a new, smaller one (small intestine this time) which he'll put back together during step two.
Expected hospital stay: 15 days
Step Two(2-4 months after step one)
Liver (the left side of which would have grown; the right side of which would have shrunk): He'll lop off the sick part (probably all of it from what I understand) of the right lobe.
De-colostomisation: He'll put my guts back together again an they'll finally remain inside my body!
Peritoneum problems: This "bag" surrounds the intestines and the reproductive organs. If the tumors in the peritoneum are not operable and present a risk for my reproductive organs, the surgeon may have to remove everything.
Stats:
5% chance of not surviving the operation of 15 November
30% chance of complications. The complications (eg. infection) would lead to a longer hospital stay.
I was quite strong during the appointment (the vampires even took blood!). An hour or so later, however, there were a few tears. I am human so that's ok. I've been through a tough situation like this before (11 1/2 hours brain surgery following a car accident in the USA, 1992) so I know that there are some things that a surgeon has to say to you (or your family, 1992) because the possibilities exist. The difficulty is knowing the difference between what they have to tell you and what is more relevant for your particular case. There is the fact that the surgeon I saw today wasn't able to consult the post-op report from my surgery in December because it wasn't in my file. So a number of crucial elements were left vague namely where the peritoneum tumors were seen during the first intervention. This of course will have a significant impact on the whole peritoneum/reproductive organs issue. I called my day hospital service upon leaving the surgeon this morning and asked them to fax it straight over to him. I've got chemo tomorrow so I'll ask for my own copy.
Then we headed off to the tax office to sort out a problem they had kindly sent us a letter about. Although we had a tough time finding the place the staff there were very helpful and the whole administrative process was surprisingly quick.
We swung by to see a friend very briefly on our way home and since we've been back the phone hasn't stopped ringing. Anna's staying over with some other friends tonight which means Froggy and I can cuddle up just the two of us.