Surgery!

Terry tolerated the surgery very well. He went in at 9 AM, and went to his room about 12 hrs later. The U is a teaching hospital, and there were far too many "baby docs" running around, trying to be important. Repeating the same questions over and over again. We won't even go into the nurses in training, the respiratory therapists in training, and the dieticians in training. No PAs in training though, so far, just lots of PAs all named Susan. At least, I know where to apply for my next job.

He had a transesophageal esopghagectomy - basically, they removed his esophagus with a cut at the neck, and another at the top of the stomach, and then pulled the stomach up to his neck. It's a lot like bariatric surgery. We watched a DVD with Dr Orringer, who pioneered this type of surgery. He explained that the advantage of the transhiatal approach is that they don't crack the chest, so all those bones are okay, and the top of the stomach is attached at the base of the neck, and if something goes wrong (leakage is the most common problem), they don't have to go into the chest again to fix any problems. The death and complications rates are much lower. The main competition for this approach comes from the U of Pittsburgh, which does this laparascopically, and is represented in this area by the surgeon we talked to at St Joes.

One of the truly wonderous things about being a recovering alcoholic is that I had friends who stayed with me throughout the whole surgery, and held my hand when it was time to see the surgeon. The doc says that what was a tumor was just an irradiated lump of goo, but that we won't know the final pathology for 3 to 5 business days.He has an epidural, and a morphine pump, that seems to knock him out, but doesn't do anything to make the pain go away. Today, he sat up in a chair, and walked down the hall. They have started pulling tubes. One today, hopefully, another tomorrow. He has some breakthrough pain, and I pointed out that maybe they're willing to tolerate 4 on the pain scale, but I'm not sure that I am, since the morphine seems pretty useless, so they juiced up his meds, adding tylenol as a pain killer. It made a real difference.

Called three first cousins on his side, and my brother to get the family news chains started last night,
The hospital has a big soft chair they allow spouses to sleep in. They must have gotten a deal - I got sciatica from the damned thing, so after the first night I slept on a pad of blankets on the floor. The big disadvantage - aside from how cold and hard it is - is that people didn't know where I was, and sometimes stepped on me. So, last night, I finally found a good alternative - got a low chair to put my feet in, and that this was the closest to comfotable I came.