Well, we are about 24 hours away from Roberto's surgery (depending on when you read this, I suppose). I got a bit more explanation from a friend of ours who is a nurse about how Roberto will be after the surgery, so I'm feeling a better now that I'm armed with more knowledge.
Here's a recap of the surgery information that we have.
Roberto is having a major surgery called a thoracotomy which is an incision on the chest. There are several types of thoracotomies; Roberto's will be on the right side of his chest. The surgeon wants to do a thoracotomy in order to preserve the cells of the tumor for further study. This way, we can know what the tumor definitely is rather than extrapolate from the needle biopsy. That's about all we definitely know about the surgery. From reading up on what a thoracotomy is, I learned that small incisions are 4-6 inches long which does not seem that small to me.
The surgery is on Tuesday, November 12th.
5:30am - Roberto will have to be at the hospital at this time to prep for surgery (insert IV line, etc.)
7:30am - The surgery starts
9:30am - The surgery ends and Roberto is taken to the ICU
11:00am-ish - Roberto can see visitors
For at least 24 hours (maybe up to 3 days) Roberto will be in the ICU. He will have a chest tube during this time to help drain fluids from his chest cavity. Apparently, this tube is gonna look crazy but I shouldn't freak out because it's absolutely normal. I will probably still freak out.
Once he is well enough, the chest tube will be removed and he will be moved out of the ICU. His total hospital stay is estimated to be 3-5 days. Hopefully, Roberto will be home sometime during the weekend.
***If you want to visit Roberto while he is at the hospital, just message me and I'll let you know when he's up for seeing visitors. I can also give you our address if you want to send a card!***
I'm planning to "live blog" the day Roberto is in surgery (Tuesday). That means I'll keep updating the day's post with manual time stamps. You can then refresh the blog during the day, or just wait until the end of the day to read all the updates at once. The general timeline is at the top so you know when the major events of the day will occur.
Gah, I'm getting more nervous. The reality of having major surgery is also hitting Roberto now. On Saturday, we had a night dinner and games night with a bunch of our close friends. Explaining the surgery to our friends made the surgery more concrete for Roberto. He's not freaking out (he is Roberto after all), but he knows it won't be a walk in the park. We had a nice talk while driving to see our friends near Berkeley on Sunday. Roberto realized that, while this all is pretty terrible, he's still pretty lucky he didn't have some other type of cancer that would be harder to treat. He's optimistic about recovery since he's handled pain before (50 mile races anyone?) and that will be much easier than handling nausea.
Roberto's hair is really showing now and he's grown a mustache! Before he lost his hair, he usually shaved the mustache area, so it's amusing to see him with one. I'm going to make a tasty steak dinner for Roberto for Monday's dinner. He can eat regular food after the surgery, but I think it'll be a nice treat.
Here's a recap of the surgery information that we have.
Roberto is having a major surgery called a thoracotomy which is an incision on the chest. There are several types of thoracotomies; Roberto's will be on the right side of his chest. The surgeon wants to do a thoracotomy in order to preserve the cells of the tumor for further study. This way, we can know what the tumor definitely is rather than extrapolate from the needle biopsy. That's about all we definitely know about the surgery. From reading up on what a thoracotomy is, I learned that small incisions are 4-6 inches long which does not seem that small to me.
The surgery is on Tuesday, November 12th.
5:30am - Roberto will have to be at the hospital at this time to prep for surgery (insert IV line, etc.)
7:30am - The surgery starts
9:30am - The surgery ends and Roberto is taken to the ICU
11:00am-ish - Roberto can see visitors
For at least 24 hours (maybe up to 3 days) Roberto will be in the ICU. He will have a chest tube during this time to help drain fluids from his chest cavity. Apparently, this tube is gonna look crazy but I shouldn't freak out because it's absolutely normal. I will probably still freak out.
Once he is well enough, the chest tube will be removed and he will be moved out of the ICU. His total hospital stay is estimated to be 3-5 days. Hopefully, Roberto will be home sometime during the weekend.
***If you want to visit Roberto while he is at the hospital, just message me and I'll let you know when he's up for seeing visitors. I can also give you our address if you want to send a card!***
I'm planning to "live blog" the day Roberto is in surgery (Tuesday). That means I'll keep updating the day's post with manual time stamps. You can then refresh the blog during the day, or just wait until the end of the day to read all the updates at once. The general timeline is at the top so you know when the major events of the day will occur.
Gah, I'm getting more nervous. The reality of having major surgery is also hitting Roberto now. On Saturday, we had a night dinner and games night with a bunch of our close friends. Explaining the surgery to our friends made the surgery more concrete for Roberto. He's not freaking out (he is Roberto after all), but he knows it won't be a walk in the park. We had a nice talk while driving to see our friends near Berkeley on Sunday. Roberto realized that, while this all is pretty terrible, he's still pretty lucky he didn't have some other type of cancer that would be harder to treat. He's optimistic about recovery since he's handled pain before (50 mile races anyone?) and that will be much easier than handling nausea.
Roberto's hair is really showing now and he's grown a mustache! Before he lost his hair, he usually shaved the mustache area, so it's amusing to see him with one. I'm going to make a tasty steak dinner for Roberto for Monday's dinner. He can eat regular food after the surgery, but I think it'll be a nice treat.
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