Surgery Update #2

Jennifer finished with surgery this afternoon after 8 and half hours, exactly what was predicted.  She went up to the surgical ICU at about 3:30 p.m. and Juliette and I had a sit down with Dr. Sugarbaker and he gave us a rundown of the procedure.  He said that it went very well.  The mass was entirely removed, along with a portion of her colon, and he performed the intraoperative heated chemotherapy as scheduled.  He is quite confident that all macroscopic disease was removed.  While there's no guarantees of course, he felt that the procedure met its goals and that her outcome has been significantly improved as a result.  In speaking with us, both of us were impressed by Dr. Sugarbaker's competence, thoroughness, compassion, and humility.  We're coming to find that all the superlative things said about him are true.  The findings, details and complexities of the surgery left both of us with the belief that Jennifer received the very best surgery possible.  He emphasized that this is a heavy procedure, that her recovery will be lengthy and that we should continue to plan on about 2 weeks before discharge.

After speaking with the doc, I was able to spend about 3 hours in the ICU with Jen until they kicked me out for a half hour ago to do a shift change.  What can I say, but that she is so impressive!  She looked great, with great color, and just a half hour or so after being brought up from the OR she was already starting to regain consciousness.  The ICU staff is great, very attentive and competent and she is being tended to by a nurse and doctor around the clock.  I've never seen so many tubes in my life (and we've done a couple of these big surgeries before); drains, hoses, & IV lines galore.  She has a breathing tube for a short while (it may be out even as I write this) and they were keeping her a little more sedated until it comes out in order for her to be more comfortable.  All her vitals are excellent.  Yay Jen!  The next big milestone is for her to leave the ICU which we hope will happen by this time tomorrow.  

That's about it for now.  We're going to head back to the ICU, press our noses against the glass and see if they'll let us back in.  Stay tuned until tomorrow, when we continue with another installment in "Jen's Most Excellent Road to Recovery"!