First and foremost, thanks for everyone's well wishes and prayers. It means a lot more than you'll ever know. Looking at life and death right in the face knowing the good people on this site have your back and give peace to someone in need really helped me and my wife Beth through. Seriously.
The Gyno/Oncologist prepared us for late stage ovarian cancer using all indications from the CT scan and pelvic exam. It was pretty grim. The plan was to open her up, take the softball size tumor, ovaries, uterus, debulk all other affected organs, and resect the bowel - roughly 4-7 hour operation. General anesthesia plus abdominal nerve block. 3 man team of surgeons plus OR staff and they would send someone out at the 2 hour mark for an update. She went in at 10am yesterday.
At 10:50am I see the lead surgeon in the doorway waving me to come over to the bad news private room. My heart hit the floor. I thought they lost her - there is no other reason for him to be out here so soon. As I got closer, I saw him with a slight smile. He proceed to tell me that it wasn't attached to the ovary at all, but wrapped around it and there was no way to see it from the scan. The tumor was attached like a small pumpkin to the small bowel. He said she's keeping all her lady bits and his team is out and the GI team on stand-by is in. He said the outcome now, even if it is malignant, is far better than what he had previously thought. The yo-yo of emotions was overwhelming.
At roughly 1pm the GI surgeon says she's in recovery. They cut the small bowel 2.5" on either side of the tumor leaving wide margins to get any disease infected areas. They reattached the small bowel using staples and looked at surrounding area for disease. They found none, but they took 2 partially swollen lymph nodes just in case. He said the tumor "appeared to be benign, but we won't know until we hear from pathology in 4-7 days." Did he just say what I thought he said? Sometimes the good guys win.
So now we count our blessings waiting for a report. Good or bad it still feels like we won the lotto. She's got a long road to recovery - she gets to go home when she farts and poops. Maybe a good bowl of bean soup? For now though, no foods for her, just IV, pain meds, and walking around the unit to get things moving. She didn't fully understand what happened yesterday. Today she allowed herself to breakdown with her new lease on life...every day a gift.
God bless you all.
Steve
Hope she recovers well, My wife spent from early November til early April with chronic digestive issues and problems urinating and side pressure. The "doctors" here seemed aloof about it. We finally decided in March to seek further treatment elsewhere. After going to a Urologist and finding a simple Medium size honeydew melon of a tumor on the right side of her uterus we got some attention. A week later she was well on here way to recovering!!!!
God Bless and continued prayers.
When momma is uncomfortable we all are!!!!!!!
