The Surgery

Carrie and I awoke in the Minnesota dark at 430 am on Friday May 4th after a rough night for me of bowel prep. We gathered our belongings and made the 15 minute walk to the Methodist hospital on the cool spring morning. At the front desk I was given my inpatient hospital band and sent upstairs for the first step of surgical prep. My vitals were taken and after going through many questions a couple different times I was sent to another floor for more prep and Carrie was sent to a waiting area. In the second prep area I was given a bed and a curtain separated me from the many other patients preparing for their operations. My chest port was accessed which always involves a saline flush which can be tasted as it is injected. Another nurse came in and shaved my belly.  I was visited by one of the surgeon's resident, one of the urologist and by the anesthesiologist. Throughout it all there was a lot of small talk regarding Colorado and my family.

Eventually an operating nurse came in to wheel me away. I was taken to the largest operating room I have yet seen. It seemed to me there were at least twenty different people buzzing around the room preparing for who knows what. There was a large machine on one side of the room similar to the radiation machine I had encountered during treatment. Someone began to talk to me again about Colorado and about hiking and then a breathing mask was put over my mouth and I was out.

I awoke somewhere around 12 hours later being lifted by several people and a ceiling sling into my hospital bed. I was very out of it but reached down to my abdomen. I still had an ostomy bag right where it had been that morning. Uncertain about what was done to me I managed to get a nurse to give me a phone and called Carrie. She had gone home after a very long day of waiting and being told that I might not even really be awake that night. She didn't know much more than me but they had left my ostomy due to having to remove more of the rectal portion of my colon than expected.

The next morning my surgeon came in and I was given some clarity about the surgical proceedings. The tumor had been slightly larger than scans had shown. They took more colon than planned and decided is was best to have a year or two of monitoring before my ostomy could be taken down. The tumor did not have issues with any major arteries or veins so the vascular surgeons did not have to be involved. Unfortunately both of my left-sided ureters were involved. Large pieces had to be removed. The urologists then stretched my bladder up to meet the remaining ureters. A small piece of small intestine was also removed. The surgeon was confident that all cancer was removed.

The surgeon did give me a piece of information that I am still chewing on. He told me that there was an area of blood vessels (the area that had been my positive margin after the first surgery) that should have been removed during my first surgery. He said it was a fairly standard part of the procedure and didn't understand why it was not done at the time.

I have much more to write about my hospitalization and recovery which I'm still in the midst of. Things still aren't functioning normally and I had a few rough days mentally and physically in the hospital. I will document all of that in the near future but for now will leave you with this. I received my pathology report last week before leaving the hospital. All margins negative for cancer. Urerters negative for cancer. Small bowel negative for cancer. To the best of my current knowledge I am negative for cancer.

Rainbows, Norse Gods, and surgery

Carrie and I arrived in Minneapolis on Tuesday evening. As we drove south to Rochester, home of the Mayo Clinic, the skies grew dark until we eventually were in the midst of a downpour. The storm continued across the Minnesota countryside until our destination came into view and we could see a rainbow arching above the Mayo buildings in downtown Rochester. Surely that was a sign that all would go well with my surgery and that my cancer would get it's buttocks thoroughly  whooped by my world class medical team. Then a lightening bolt crackled across the rainbow above the city. Surely that was a sign that Thor, god of lightening, was prepared to smite this terrible disease. I don't know. I'm not particularly superstitious but it's nice to pretend.

Tomorrow morning I will go into the hospital around 530 am for surgery. In preparation I have had eight different appointments over the last two days including blood work, urine tests, CT scan,   urology consultation, surgical consultation, oncology consultation, and vascular surgeon consultation. There are many unknowns with the surgery. I may require some removal/reconstruction of a ureters and an artery. I will likely receive a blood transfusion. Tonight I must do some bowel prep and in case you don't know it's going to be a blast. Tomorrow when I go in there will be a couple hours of prep. The surgery itself could take around 5 hours. I will be in recovery for a couple hours before getting moved to a hospital room.

At this point the process is out of our hands and we must wait and see. So much depends on the positioning of such a small mass of cells. I will know nothing until I awake from the anesthesia. Carrie will spend a long day waiting for updates and keeping others updated. May rainbows, lightening, Thor and all of our loved ones be throwing their support behind us. I love you all and will be posting sometime soon on the other side of this surgery.