Tuesday, March 28, 2006

March 28, 2006

I am blogging earlier today than normal-and from home! We left around 9 this morning after packing haphazardly. We were too busy having a dancing party last night to pack, and by not packing it was easy to ignore these major days coming up. We arrived in Iowa City and the pediatric clinic where Tom helped us. Our meeting with the surgeons was at 11 and Dr. Lawrence came and went over many of the surgical procedures and concerns with us. He feels that the tumor is resectable and located in the right lobe of the liver. That would remove 50% of her liver, and they could take more if they need to by removing a portion of the left lobe. The primary concentration of the surgery is on the liver and he believes it will take 4-5 hours of time. The spots in the lung are kind of a tag-on item. They will try to go in through the diaphragm and remove those in that manner. If they are unable to see them that way they will use a scope. The third option if neither of those work is making another incision going in from the back. He agreed with the rough 9-hour surgery estimate. However, he highlighted that unlike ER or Gray's Anatomy there will not be earthshaking, dramatic events occurring each moment. Much of it will be boring and monotonous and time consuming. Merely preparing her for surgery once I leave the OR could take up to 2 hours. She will have plenty of tubes coming out of her-catheter, port tube, arterial IV, NG tube, ventilator that will all take time to insert as well. And, we should expect her to need blood during surgery especially since this involves the liver. The best news of the day was that we did not need an NG tube. I told Leah she should kiss Dr. Lawrence when he told us that. In fact the total bowel prep she has to do is taking her normal dose of Miralax (powder we dissolve in her milk that is tasteless) tonight. She can even eat until midnight. By the time Dr. Lawrence told us this Tom and Chris and I had already talked to Leah about getting the NG tube in and Tom was prepared to do it in the clinic. So, even though it is a small thing, we feel like we won the lottery! We were also elated when he told us that we were not staying in the hospital tonight and just showing up tomorrow morning for surgery. We were thrown for a bit of a loop by this news, but were happy to take this treat, too. So tomorrow morning we leave bright and early. She is now the second case of the day. We will report to surgery at 7:30 (her port will be accessed on 7th floor at 6:45) and her surgery will begin at approximately 9:00-9:30.

Our meeting with anesthesiology was unremarkable. Chris and I learned nothing new, but this is another hoop to jump through. By the time we got to leave it was 2 PM and we had not had lunch. We had a quick bite to eat at the mall per Leah's request and made it home just after 4. Tonight will be an early night and tomorrow an even earlier morning.

Please continue to pray, pray, pray for a successful surgery with no surprises and good results as well as a speedy recovery. This is another big step for us on this long road.

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