I'm going back to the old format of writing about the previous day. For today's post, I'm going to talk about Tuesday - the surgery day. I know that the two blog posts from yesterday were extensive, but there are some tidbits I didn't include and some things I want to clarify. The important bits are in between the *** below if you want to skip.
The morning wasn't too bad and went pretty smoothly. All the pre-operation prep was standard: change into a gown, get an IV, and sign consent forms. The nurse did sort of mess up inserting the IV, though, and got a bunch of blood over Roberto's gown. He had to awkwardly change into a new one with a blanket over himself (I'm not sure why the nurse didn't just give him the gown and some privacy).
Then came the anesthesiologist. While he was talking to Roberto, he said, "I saw in your chart that you were suffering from heartburn. Is that gone now?" Roberto said, "I haven't had any heartburn." The doctor then said, "Okay, I'm going to go talk to a nurse. I'll be right back." After a while, I took a peek around the corner and saw the anesthesiologist looking over Roberto's CT scans. Yeeeah, I guess he looked at the wrong chart? Well, thank goodness he did that mini-cram session because he definitely needed the proper info about Roberto. When he came back, he informed us that he'll have to keep Roberto partially awake during the surgery. If Roberto went too "under" the anesthesia, his lung could collapse and that could lead to death. Conveniently, even though Roberto would be awake, he would not remember the surgery.
Most of my ramblings from yesterday are probably all you need to know about the 3.5 hours we waited to hear any word about Roberto. I felt as though I would burst into tears at any moment once we passed the 2 hour mark (the surgeon said the surgery would take only two hours). Having Pedro and Adam around definitely helped. I would have probably started bawling as I curled up into a ball on the floor of the waiting room.
****** The Important Bits ******
Okay, this is what the surgeon told me. The reason why the surgery took so long is because part of the tumor grew from the right, through the middle of Roberto's body (medaistinum) to the left side. I don't know how much of the tumor this was. The reason why this was hard to remove is because they made the incision on the right side of Roberto's body. I imagine it's like reaching for something in the back of a super full freezer; that is probably the worst analogy I could use.
The other complication is that there was a lot of scar tissue from chemotherapy. The surgeon stated that the chemotherapy was really effective because of all the scar tissue. You know how a scar forms on your skin? It's a nice covering the connects all the bits of skin together where there is no skin. Okay, now think about your internal organs. They are made to be slippery inside you, because you're a flexible person that might bend in weird ways. When there is internal scar tissue, slippery internal organs are now connected. This is what happened to Roberto's tumor and his lung - they got connected via the scar tissue.
The surgeon told me, "I had to remove part of the upper and middle lobe." Okay, I don't know about you, but that sounded like he removed a chunk of the lung!!! Thankfully, I saw the surgeon again at night and asked him specifically about how much of the lung he removed. He said that he "didn't remove that much of the lung" and, in fact, Roberto's entire lung is inflated. *Whew* and hooray!!
This is super important: Roberto might need to have radiation later. It depends on what the pathologists find when they study his tumor. We'll just cross that road when we need to, which might be next week when we see the surgeon again.
***************************
Roberto has a nice room in the ICU with a window view. It looks down into an unfinished courtyard of the building, but from Roberto's vantage, he gets to see the pretty sky. To help rehabilitate his lung, Roberto has to do breathing exercises using a spirometer. It's like a plastic toy that you blow air into and it moves a plastic bit in a tube. I'll get a picture.
Also, Roberto has a bunch of tubes sticking in him. There's the IV, the central line, the chest tube, a catheter for the bladder, and possibly another IV somewhere else? The chest tube did have disgusting red liquid. I did not freak out, though, because I was prepared. Thank you, Lucile!
Unfortunately, the anesthesia made Roberto nauseated (nauseous?) and he's vomited a few times. It bought us all back to the chemo days, but Roberto said that this made him over come the fear he developed for vomiting. I guess that's good...?
Okay, the hard part is over. Time to sleep!
The morning wasn't too bad and went pretty smoothly. All the pre-operation prep was standard: change into a gown, get an IV, and sign consent forms. The nurse did sort of mess up inserting the IV, though, and got a bunch of blood over Roberto's gown. He had to awkwardly change into a new one with a blanket over himself (I'm not sure why the nurse didn't just give him the gown and some privacy).
Then came the anesthesiologist. While he was talking to Roberto, he said, "I saw in your chart that you were suffering from heartburn. Is that gone now?" Roberto said, "I haven't had any heartburn." The doctor then said, "Okay, I'm going to go talk to a nurse. I'll be right back." After a while, I took a peek around the corner and saw the anesthesiologist looking over Roberto's CT scans. Yeeeah, I guess he looked at the wrong chart? Well, thank goodness he did that mini-cram session because he definitely needed the proper info about Roberto. When he came back, he informed us that he'll have to keep Roberto partially awake during the surgery. If Roberto went too "under" the anesthesia, his lung could collapse and that could lead to death. Conveniently, even though Roberto would be awake, he would not remember the surgery.
Most of my ramblings from yesterday are probably all you need to know about the 3.5 hours we waited to hear any word about Roberto. I felt as though I would burst into tears at any moment once we passed the 2 hour mark (the surgeon said the surgery would take only two hours). Having Pedro and Adam around definitely helped. I would have probably started bawling as I curled up into a ball on the floor of the waiting room.
****** The Important Bits ******
Okay, this is what the surgeon told me. The reason why the surgery took so long is because part of the tumor grew from the right, through the middle of Roberto's body (medaistinum) to the left side. I don't know how much of the tumor this was. The reason why this was hard to remove is because they made the incision on the right side of Roberto's body. I imagine it's like reaching for something in the back of a super full freezer; that is probably the worst analogy I could use.
The other complication is that there was a lot of scar tissue from chemotherapy. The surgeon stated that the chemotherapy was really effective because of all the scar tissue. You know how a scar forms on your skin? It's a nice covering the connects all the bits of skin together where there is no skin. Okay, now think about your internal organs. They are made to be slippery inside you, because you're a flexible person that might bend in weird ways. When there is internal scar tissue, slippery internal organs are now connected. This is what happened to Roberto's tumor and his lung - they got connected via the scar tissue.
The surgeon told me, "I had to remove part of the upper and middle lobe." Okay, I don't know about you, but that sounded like he removed a chunk of the lung!!! Thankfully, I saw the surgeon again at night and asked him specifically about how much of the lung he removed. He said that he "didn't remove that much of the lung" and, in fact, Roberto's entire lung is inflated. *Whew* and hooray!!
This is super important: Roberto might need to have radiation later. It depends on what the pathologists find when they study his tumor. We'll just cross that road when we need to, which might be next week when we see the surgeon again.
***************************
Roberto has a nice room in the ICU with a window view. It looks down into an unfinished courtyard of the building, but from Roberto's vantage, he gets to see the pretty sky. To help rehabilitate his lung, Roberto has to do breathing exercises using a spirometer. It's like a plastic toy that you blow air into and it moves a plastic bit in a tube. I'll get a picture.
Also, Roberto has a bunch of tubes sticking in him. There's the IV, the central line, the chest tube, a catheter for the bladder, and possibly another IV somewhere else? The chest tube did have disgusting red liquid. I did not freak out, though, because I was prepared. Thank you, Lucile!
Unfortunately, the anesthesia made Roberto nauseated (nauseous?) and he's vomited a few times. It bought us all back to the chemo days, but Roberto said that this made him over come the fear he developed for vomiting. I guess that's good...?
Okay, the hard part is over. Time to sleep!
You do such an excellent job of describing the process. Thank you!
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