iowagirl

I am to report to hospital admissions desk at 8:15 a.m…..so surgery will apparently be sometime in the morning…..guessing mid morning. My husband, Allen, is going to post after I am out of surgery and he knows more. I will post myself in a couple days.

Julie T.

Catherine,

Yup….I’m looking for that video from Gavin. He’d better come through because it’s the ONLY thing that will cheer me up. Hear that Gavin?

Okay…just kidding. Actually the little grandboys are my happiest moments. My daughter-in-law dropped of the baby this morning…and warned us….he’s gotten very “vocal” over the weekend. )))) That’s putting it mildly. Now he hollars loudly about everything….and we don’t know what he wants again. Starting over with communication, I guess. LOL

It’s funny…..the surgery isn’t simple at all..;interesting that I made it sound that way…LOL…….liver surgery is among the most difficult for surgeons…..more difficult than brain surgery, I’ve been told. My surgery, barring them finding some other “nodules” during the intra-abdominal ultrasound, should be just what I described, cutting off that corner of the one segment. However, when doing that, they are tying off a lot of bleeders and mini bile ducts as they cut their way through….and it will all be done laproscopically, assuming that he doesn’t run into any trouble that needs more operating room to move around inside the abdomen. It’s very tight up by the diaphram near the liver as it is….so that does make it more difficult. That said, I “think” (dang..I forgot to ask) that the surgery “should” be slightly less time than the 6-7 hours actual operating time for the first surgery because that cut away far more liver tissue,, involving resecting arteries, etc.

Seems that the longer I’m home, the more questions I have.

Major Christmas shoppping done today. I only need to pick up several gift cards for stocking stuffers and buy the stuff in my on-line shopping carts at Kohls and Amazon. And…..I need one gift for son and DIL to unwrap. The little boys are done…..the most important part. I’m usually not this close to being done this early….but I will rise the challenge. LOL

Genevieve, Thank you for that post about your husband’s scans. They keep telling me that even the MRI can only see something 1 cm or bigger, but obviously that isn’t the case, since your husband has proof of that in his own scans. They have remarked that the MRI is better for liver than the CT, but that they generally do CT because of cost. And…yes, it is significantly more costly. But, I’m also getting a CT of my lungs because for that, the CT is sufficient without contrast, which I’m allergic to.

My question was….this surgeon made that comment that the MRI was more sensitive than an intra-abdominal ultrasound (during surgery) of the liver in seeing additional, but smaller (in the mm size ) growths. At the time of my first surgery, I had not had an MRI….only two CTs and a PET scan, neither of which showed ANYthing other than the 5 cm tumor. (there turned out to be one half inch size tumor which was seen doing intra-abdominal ultrasound). But, if the MRI can pick up these little buggers better than intra-operative ultrasound….why bother with that during surgery? Then again….we’re waiting three weeks for that surgical date…..so maybe it does make sense to to the ultrasound in case anything more pops up. They won’t be doing another MRI before surgery. I suspect the insurance company would really balk at that one. ))

If the MRI can pick up those really small mm range tumors like 3 and 5 mm……then I should be good because there was absolutely nothing in that liver except good liver tissue and this one tumor. If there is something there smaller than 3 mm, it’s going to take a while to grow and give us more options. And…..it’s possible that this far out from my first surgery….and the otherwise decent looking MRI, this could be the only stray cell that developed. You have made me feel a lot better about this. Thank you. I think I’ll sleep some better tonight.

Julie T.

Lainy….thank you as usual for being my cheerleader.

Marion,….thanks for the scan info link.

At first, I only got a CT with contrast of chest through pelvis. Now, I have both a CT without contrast of my chest/lungs and an MRI with contrast of my abdomen/pelvis because of a reaction to the CT contrast. Apparently the CT without contrast is good enough for the lungs, but the MRI with contrast does better for the pelvis. When I get an MRI, it lasts close to an hour with a lot of breath holding, over and over and over. That is to help stabilize the organs for the actual scan, which is done on the exhales. I actually got a little light headed for all the deep breaths and breath holding, and actuallly hallucinated a little toward the second half of the MRI. It just seemed to real…..and would happen between breath holding. VERY WEIRD! I was going to ask the oncologist about it….if he’d ever heard of that before. But, apparently, whatever I did, still gave a good picture and the radiologists were more than happy with how I did the scan. I’ve had other MRIs of body areas where I did just lie in the scanner, but when these particular areas are involved, you have to actively take part in the scan and listen for breathing instructions.

Also, I had forgotten about it, but saw on your link about the lesser known combination scan. That hasn’t been mentioned at Mayo that I remember, so I don’t know if it would even be appropriate in my case. If anybody has it…surely Mayo does though. Will ask about that when I go up there or maybe before.

Just another tidbit that I now am remembering from my consult with the Mayo oncologist. I asked about this new small tumor…..as to when it would be large enough or when it would start shedding cells to spread the cancer. (I am concerned about the 3 week wait for surgery). His response was, that he wished the surgery would be sooner, to get it out of there, but as far as when the shedding first occurs, it is something they just don’t know. It could feasibly start when it’s actually pretty small….OR….not until it’s much bigger…they “just don’t know”. Of course, I was hoping for a better answer…..that it wouldn’t be a worry until it was something like 3-4 cm…..but if they don’t know, they don’t know and any answer would be a guess.

Emotionally, I’m doing a “little” better today…….unless someone asks me how I am (and they don’t know about this) and the whole thing washes over me again. I remember from the last time, that is how it was until the tumor came out of there.

As for a recurrence….I guess it is my nature to want all my ducks in a row….and to find the best possible scenario for the best possible outcome. I know from a little reading that this surgeon is a world class surgeon and he has a more than passing interest in CC. In fact, I may be taking part in a study that he is doing with CC. More about that in another post later. I want to do more reading about that before I say too much.

December 7, “the date to live in infamy” That is the current scheduled date for my resection of this new tumor…..the earliest surgical date that the surgeon had available. We met with him at 4 pm. today, and then again with the oncologist after that. The plan now is for the surgeon to go in and do a small wedge resection of the part of the liver with the tumor, getting about an inch margin. He saw no purpose in doing more than that. The tumor is actually 1.5 cm (not 1 cm as I previously stated) and was probably there microscopically at the time of my first resection in Feb 2014 , and has taken this long to grow. Trying to put a good spin on it, the doctors indicated that since this much time (1 year 8 months) has elapsed since my surgery, the tumor appears to be growing very slowly and it’ s “possible” that it may be the only tumor cell that had migrated before surgery….or possibly, the only one that hadn’t been killed off by adjuvant chemo. It’s just a guess. But, either way, that would be just fine by me. The proof will be the passage of more time after this new resection. If no more pop up then it may be a good guess. However, since the scans only show tumors of at least 1 cm size there could be more smaller ones just ready to make their presence known in the next 3-4 months. I alternate between handling this well and breaking out in tears. But, it is what it is. I will deal with it however I can. The surgery is a cake walk emotionally……..I just really don’t like the reason for the surgery one bit.