Lisa's Surgery Went Well...

Hi All,

I'm Simon - Lisa's husband, and I wanted to give you an update on her cytoreduction surgery yesterday and how she's doing post-surgery...

This is a bit detailed, but as Lisa knows, I have the incredible ability to turn a short story into a very long one... )
Lisa's surgery began at 8:20AM yesterday and was finished at around 4:15 (quite a bit shorter than the 12-14 hours we've read and heard about for this surgery).

The surgeon, Dr. Lowy, told me the surgery went as well as they could possibly have expected, and that he was actually a little suprised when he got in there that the disease hadn't progressed nearly as much as he thought it might have (some VERY comforting words, indeed). They removed her ovaries, her gall bladder, did a small resection of her diaphragm, as they couldn't easily remove the tumor located there. He also found some tumor on her appendix, and was not able to simply peel it off as he could most of the other tumor he found, and the tumor stopped at a point they usually use as a marker to cut out the appendix, so he decided to resection the small area of colon that the appendix is part of to make sure to get all of the tumor (about six inches of her colon was removed with the appendix). The only other significant (more than a mm or two) area of tumor was on the surface of her liver, which they were able to easily remove. The rest of the tumors were tiny (1-2mm) "pimple" like tumors, and mostly confined to the peritoneum itself. The peritoneum in these areas was simply peeled away, and any residual tumor lasered off.
GOOD NEWS***** None of the tumor material had actually grown INTO the tissue of any of the organs it was found on - surface tumor only (the appendix and diaphragm tumor was adhered very strongly to the surface of these organs, requring the resections of these two areas I discussed earlier - the tumor had NOT grown into these two organs, either).

They did the perfusion (pouring the heated chemo into her abdominal cavity) and left it in for 90 minutes. Other than closing her up, this was pretty much the conclusion of the operation.

She is in SICU (Surgical Intensive Care Unit) and doing well, except for getting a handle on the pain itself. Her vitals are all good and normal for this type of surgery, and she is talking just a bit (usually limited to whispering "mother****!!! as she's trying to re-position herself in the bed.)

They bumped up her dilaudid for her pain, in an effort to finally put a dent in it. I saw her this AM for a couple of hours (I'm a computer tech at the hospital she's at, so they're letting me see her pretty much whenever I like and for as long as I like, which is a Godsend), and they gave her a little boost on her Dilaudid before I left. Her nurse called me a bit ago and said she's a bit better ref the pain, and put Lisa on the phone. She was much more talkative than just a few hours earlier, so she is feeling better. LOTS of pain, though...tough to get a handle on, but they're doing their best.

I'll get back to you later today or tomorrow with another update. And I want to thank each an every one of you for your support, encouragement, prayers, and especially the strength your messages give Lisa and I - THAT is immeasurable, and probably the biggest gift of all (but keep the prayers up just the same! )

Bye for now and take care of yourselves, and each other...

Simon