Successful Surgery - Recovering "Comfortably"

This is Anna posting from the surgical waiting area, after having met with Hana's surgeon. Here is the brief report of good news - Hana will surely be back on line tomorrow sharing more relevant news with you.

The punch line is that her uterine cancer did not appear to have spread beyond the handy uterine container ("no visible cancer outside the uterus") , and Dr. Singh did not have to remove any colon; she was able to complete the whole procedure laparoscopically.

The longer version is that soon after Hana was tipped upside down she had a bit of an asthma attack which totally got the team's attention and made them very respectful of taking too much time or doing extra work. They took whole bunches of biopsies ("we collected a lot of data") and froze some of them for pathologists to play with, and looked at a few right away - which is how they know about the "no visible cancer" part. The part that was so confusing on MRI and by feel before surgery was that stickiness between the uterus and the colon and other local parts - it turns out that sticky stuff was pus - there was an infection that seems to have hung out there giving Hana pain - and it made stuff get all gummed up. There's no obvious explanation yet for why she got this infection, and Hana's on antibiotics for a short time until they determine more time (or not) is needed.

The rest of the data - from lymph nodes and other pieces they took - will give more information to guide future treatment. Apparently they like to do surgery and radiation for uterine cancer, and those biopsies will help figure that plan out.

Jon has been requested to stay the night. He's supposed to make the patient walk and drink and breathe and move - even though she won't want to. Dr. Singh will see Hana and Jon in the morning and help figure out how long she will be in the hospital. Hana might go home tomorrow, and she might be here  a couple days - kind of depends on how things go in the drinking, moving peeing and eating departments.

Jon is looking quite chipper now. He seems to have a lot of energy.

The excitement in the waiting room. Missing: Anna, Hannah.

Paul, Nell, Cookie, Nancy
Waiting for the doctor.
Susan, Jon



On the road to recovery.


























Comments

  1. Betsy Murphy EricksonFebruary 19, 2019 at 2:42 PM

    SO HAPPY to hear this good news!!!!! PHEW! Thanks for posting, Anna!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anna NewcombFebruary 19, 2019 at 3:08 PM

    Hana says, "The results couldn't be better. But why do I have pus? Ouch!! My head hurts! I'm thirsty. I don't want to open my eyes. Do I have to?"

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownFebruary 19, 2019 at 3:52 PM

    Great news! Thank you for posting and give my choir mate a high five from me!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sarah BFebruary 19, 2019 at 3:53 PM

    Yay!!!! What a relief. And now for the boring and perhaps slow movement back to growing things!

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownFebruary 19, 2019 at 4:24 PM

    Biggest exhale ever on my part. Thanks so much, Anna. Love the quote from Hana and the pix.

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownFebruary 19, 2019 at 4:24 PM

    Very good news! Thanks for posting and pics, Anna! (from Paul, Martha and Bean)

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownFebruary 19, 2019 at 5:24 PM

    PHEW thanks for an excellent report anna! so so glad that bad cancer stayed inside the uterus.
    ellen

    ReplyDelete
  8. Rachel McFebruary 19, 2019 at 5:58 PM

    So relieved that is over and they couldn't see any signs outside the U! Thanks for the update, Anna. Stay well everyone!
    Rachel

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownFebruary 19, 2019 at 7:20 PM

    Great news. Keep moving! Down with pus! Timothy & Claudine

    ReplyDelete
  10. KatherineFebruary 19, 2019 at 7:31 PM

    Glad to hear surgery went well! Sending lots of healing and recovery thoughts!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Julia KFebruary 19, 2019 at 11:33 PM

    LOVE and relief XO Julia K

    ReplyDelete
  12. LaurieFebruary 20, 2019 at 6:51 AM

    Wonderful news! C-word, do NOT mess with Hana.....make sure you pee!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  13. CarrieFebruary 20, 2019 at 7:07 AM


    Laparoscopic surgery is da bomb, and hurrah for good biopsies! Much love from Carrie and Ray.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Improving

I haven't been to see him myself yet today, but I hear that he is starting to express some angst about all the things he should be doing on the farm. This is good. It has been days since he even thought to pick up his phone, which certainly was an indication of how terrible he was feeling.  The NG tube was put in yesterday and they started feeding him right away, even though they didn't quite have the equipment in place to do it all to code. Rebecca says they manually pumped the formula, which must have been a challenge since the pace of delivery was supposed to be extremely slow and careful. By 10:00 last night, the charge nurse had installed the pump. They still didn't have all the right equipment but they managed to piece everything together and Jon was fed a small dribble of formula all night long. Today they are working on increasing the dosage, as his stomach shows that it can manage this. Things are looking up. Alissa and Rebecca went in this morning and Anna is taki...
Read more

Rolling Updates from the Waiting Room

I have to admit that we/I did not pay any attention to the details of what to expect today. We have done this a couple of times before, and I have hung out in this waiting room in years past. We were supposed to arrive at 6:30 to check in to Interventional Radiology so Jon could have a central line installed for cell collection. We did that, arriving right on time. They immediately took him back and gave me a number to watch on the board (no more names, just numbers). So I know that the patient is in pre-op. What I don't know is how long this takes, or how far I can wander. Nor do I know when we are expected at the next location for the hours-long pheresis event. Of course, there are reasons for this lack of attention. One is that we trust that we will be instructed as we go, and we are familiar enough with the hospital and its systems. Two is that the baby was the most important news, and this was much less interesting.  In brief, Rebecca had an appointment at 8 AM on Friday, the ...
Read more

Back Into the Hospital

Since the last report, a little over a year ago, Jon has been dealing with a lot of treatment-related symptoms. It has been a tough 15 months or so since he started on the Telqetamab. The main side effect was loss of taste, which led to a general loss of appetite and a struggle to eat. Through it all, Jon has continued to take care of us by cooking our dinners, maintaining so much at the farm, helping us to keep everything going. By about June, that treatment stopped being effective and the oncologists decided that he was strong enough to be a candidate for CAR-T (another long and involved process that can be described later, but it holds promise), even though he lost about 40 pounds in that year. His spirits were good, his energy was good, he had adapted to his loss of taste. The doctors prescribed a bridge treatment, something to keep the myeloma quiet if possible. It was known to have many dire side effects. Back to the decadron, a whomping amount of steroids that means very little ...
Read more