Health update
I'm having a hysterectomy on Friday. The biopsies say that the cancer is "not too undifferentiated" which means it is not very advanced, and is very likely completely contained in the uterus.
I met with my oncologist for the first time on Tuesday. He's terrific. He's very straightforward and talked to us like we were educated adults. Some doctors talk down to you and don't use long words, causing you to not understand what's really going to happen because you DO know the long words and the simpler summaries don't capture the correct meaning.
The plan is to start with a laparoscopy, detach all the outgoing organs from the surrounding tissue, and drop everything out through the vagina. If the detachment doesn't happen neatly, which it might not due to earlier endometriosis surgery and possible scarring, they'll have to do a laparotomy (that means the traditional incision through the abdomen) so they can work more directly rather than through the remote control laparoscopic instruments and take everything out through the larger incision. They won't know until they get in what they'll end up doing, so I'll find out when I wake up. The whole procedure should take 2-3 hours.
If they don't like what they see when they're in there, they'll hunt around for lymph nodes to biopsy. Somehow I thought lymph nodes were large, but they're apparently really little and a bit hard to find. Pathology from that will take another week. Some pathology of the uterus will be done while I'm on the operating table to direct their actions, but final pathology will take the usual week.
If they're able to do it laparoscopically, and I'm recovering well, I'll go home Saturday afternoon. Otherwise we'll expect me to go home Sunday afternoon, or perhaps later if something else goes awry.
Meantime I'm trying to get everything done that needs me to be strong, like getting the boat out of the water...
I met with my oncologist for the first time on Tuesday. He's terrific. He's very straightforward and talked to us like we were educated adults. Some doctors talk down to you and don't use long words, causing you to not understand what's really going to happen because you DO know the long words and the simpler summaries don't capture the correct meaning.
The plan is to start with a laparoscopy, detach all the outgoing organs from the surrounding tissue, and drop everything out through the vagina. If the detachment doesn't happen neatly, which it might not due to earlier endometriosis surgery and possible scarring, they'll have to do a laparotomy (that means the traditional incision through the abdomen) so they can work more directly rather than through the remote control laparoscopic instruments and take everything out through the larger incision. They won't know until they get in what they'll end up doing, so I'll find out when I wake up. The whole procedure should take 2-3 hours.
If they don't like what they see when they're in there, they'll hunt around for lymph nodes to biopsy. Somehow I thought lymph nodes were large, but they're apparently really little and a bit hard to find. Pathology from that will take another week. Some pathology of the uterus will be done while I'm on the operating table to direct their actions, but final pathology will take the usual week.
If they're able to do it laparoscopically, and I'm recovering well, I'll go home Saturday afternoon. Otherwise we'll expect me to go home Sunday afternoon, or perhaps later if something else goes awry.
Meantime I'm trying to get everything done that needs me to be strong, like getting the boat out of the water...