Surgery update from MD Anderson [from Scott]

I'm writing this entry because my Father isn't able to yet, and we thought we'd better pass on some status.

Dad had to start fasting Saturday night and we checked into the surgery area around 5 AM on Monday morning. We were able to spend a little time with him, but it was a pretty busy room with about 12 people being prepped for surgery in this first group. They wheeled him back about 7 AM and the surgery started at 8 AM. First they used an laproscopic scope to look at the outside of his stomach to make sure the cancer hadn't spread. It hadn't so they proceeded with the surgery.

We received updates about every 2 hours and finally the surgeon spoke with us when he was done at about 6 PM. Everything went very well. Several biopsies they performed of other areas such as the liver turned up negative. The tumor itself was largely dead tissue from the previous radiation and chemotherapy treatments. They did have to remove a little part of one vein that the tumor was touching, but they were able to sew it back together without needing to reconstruct it with a vein from his leg.

The told us it would take 3 to 5 days for them to check the tissue they removed to make sure that there were no cancerous cells where they cut, which would indicate that they may have left some behind. They believe they had a clean removal.

Dad was in the recovery area receiving dedicated care until about noon the next day (today) when he was moved to a regular room. He's pretty uncomfortable, with a fair amount of pain, even with the epidural pain medication and he has a lot of tubes and wires hooked up to him as well. Right now they are mostly concerned with his breathing and recovering from the effects of being under anesthesia that long.

They hope to be able to get him on his feet soon to help with recovery, but he won't be able to start taking anything by mouth for another day or two.

Once he is feeling up to it, he may dictate an entry to me.

Cheers,
Scott

P.S. My Dad's insurance has decided that if he needs any more CAT scans that he should use the economy method (pictured as follows).