Surgery day

The day is here. The day that has been marching steadily forward since September 21st when the nodule was first seen. Oh my, how slow time can be. The last few days have seemed interminable.

My plan was to “live” blog the events of today, updating this post throughout the day. I still plan on doing that, but it will be from a distance as I’m still testing positive for covid.

So it’s 5am, and we are preparing to drive to the hospital. I’ll drop Jane and Sarah off then come back home. At least Sarah should be able to stay with her as she preps for surgery.

See you at the next update….

[6:30am] Jane is checked in and waiting for the rest of surgery prep.

[7:10am] Found out that they will use the robot for surgery. We weren’t expecting that since the surgeon said you typically have to book the robot way in advance since they are very expensive and the hospital only has one. You can read more about robotic lung surgery here.

I’m so glad that Sarah is able to be with her!

[7:20am] They expect to take her into the OR around 8:30 or 9.

[7:22am] Correction. They will take her to the OR around 7:30.

[7:33am] She is headed to the OR. So now we wait….

[8:53am] They started the surgery at 8:30. Stats look good. Anesthesia is going well. Just starting the robots now. Estimate is about 3 hours for surgery.

[9:10am] I found an educational video that shows the robot in action during lung surgery. You can see it here. If you get queasy at these kinds of things, I suggest you don’t watch. The tech is amazing, the dexterity and the vision is incredible.

[10:50am] I’ve just been out getting a few more home covid tests. It feels like I’m “jonesing” for more tests! I would love to be able to visit her at the hospital, but need a negative test result.

[1:11pm] Surgery is done, they are closing now. They will start to wake her in the OR, then move her to recovery where she will be an hour or two before being moved into a room. She handled the surgery well (vital stats, etc).

[2:15pm] She is in recovery now.

[2:30pm] Doctors report: Lymph nodes were all clear of cancer. One of the first things they do is sample local and regional lymph nodes to make sure there aren’t any additional cancer cells lurking. The length of the surgery was due to the difficulty of the wedge resection even when using the robot. They ended up removing the robot and doing the wedge resection using VATS. He was even thinking that they might have needed to do an old school Thoracotomy which is a large incision. I’m glad they didn’t need to do that! They also have pathology check for clear margins in the wedge resection, which they had.

[6:15pm] Just back home from taking Sarah and Penelope to see her in the room. They spent almost an hour with her. They have her on pain medication – duh – so she’s pretty groggy. Probably the best thing for her is to sleep and rest tonight. I’m still testing positive and am hoping for a different outcome tomorrow.

This is the end of the updates I will make for today. Thanks everyone for your prayers today. We are so grateful for the outcome we have seen so far.