Surgery Update

Christian again here…..

 

So surgery is a little more extensive than I had hoped, but could be worse.  Unfortunately, this is not a laparoscopic surgery.  She (the surgeon) will have to make a ~6 inch incision on my back/side underneath my shoulder blade, push the muscle aside and go in-between ribs.  These types of surgeries continue to erode my underwear model aspirations.

 

The surgeon puts this a 4 out of 10 on the difficulty scale, which sounds good.  We haven’t heard from the Russian judge.  These are still tricky surgeries that need a lot of planning so that they take out as little lung tissue as possible.  The surgeon is going after the bad actors (the lesions that show active glucose uptake according to the PET scan or growing according to the CT) regardless of location in the lung.  Additionally, she will remove any others that are easily accessible (on the edges where there is little tissue removal) - may or may not be considered active.  Again, the scans will show a mass, but if it is not changing from scan to scan, it is hopefully inactive, or dead.

 

They are not going to take out everything that looks like a “disease” spot, as to preserve as much lung tissue as possible – hopefully all that would remain are dead.  The removal amounts to approximately 10 spots per lung, so about 20 of the 35 are coming out, one lung at a time.  I have the first surgery on February 3^rd, (arrive at 5:30 am the day after the Super Bowl) with 3-5 days in the hospital.  4-6 weeks recovery, then the second lung, followed by another 4-6 weeks recovery.  As such, I am basically out until sometime in April.

 

I asked the surgeon about lung function after surgery….basically she looked at me and said “well since you are not an elite athlete, you shouldn’t notice much”……how insulting.

 

After I am recovered from surgery, it sounds like I get to go on Pazopanib (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazopanib).  Not a tough chemo like the last two (Doxoribucin/TH-302 and Gemcitabine/Docetaxel), but might cause a bit of trouble.  Future option for further surgery down the line if one or more shows active again.

 

If you have not seen it, check out the write-up on Lily.  Really proud of her:

https://iuhealth.org:8443/blog/detail/lilys-lemonade-for-cancer-caregivers

 

Thanks all for the support and prayers!

Celebrating Lily's 7th b-day, which was Jan. 14.