jenny's belly

Surgeon Upgrade

I really like Dr. Vernon, but I've officially switched surgeons to Dr. Osteen.

Like Dr. Vernon, he is a gastric surgeon. Unlike Dr. Vernon, he is also an oncologist. Another difference is that she is basically just starting her career and not a whole lot older than I am. Dr. Osteen is winding his career down and is likely to retire soon. That's the doctor I want: the one who can't count his surgeries because there have been too many. Dr. Vernon is a wonderful, compassionate surgeon and Dr. Osteen is very stoic, but he is speaking of opening me up and "feeling" lymph nodes for cancer. It seems that Dr. Vernon was planning to do the surgery laproscopically (big word, I know, but strangely in my vocabulary now) where she could see but not touch.

Dr. Osteen made it clear very few patients have had cancer surgery via laproscope. That was enough information for me! Yeah, I'm not going to be a test case. Especially because they don't know yet how much of my stomach is coming out and whether they have to take part of my esophagus as well. Something looks funky with it, as in it's too narrow, but maybe it's just the way my body is. We're not made with cookie cutters, you know. :)

I learned some interesting things today:
* Cancer grows like a tree with "roots"
* It feeds on sugar (though likely something like "glucose" is the correct term)
* There is a test which checks for cancer using "radioactive sugar". Sweet (pun intended).
* Lymph nodes are filters

RE the radioactive sugar test: Dr. Osteen doesn't see this test, the "PET Scan", as necessary. He's not big on tests ("There aren't any true/false results"). They are only tools to help identify where the cancer is and how far reaching it is, but after the Endoscopic Ultrasound, which I have tomorrow morning, he's basically ready to go. I'm having this test with anesthesia because I refuse to go through what I went through on the 15th with the normal endoscopy and "numbing spray".

Because I've switched surgeons, my surgery date has changed to August 15. I learned I'll be in the hospital 7 days minimum, and they will try to release me any time after that, but may be in there 9 days.

After surgery I'll have a visiting nurse for some time. I assume this means there will be some horrible things that will need to be taken care of. Not just changing dressing on the wounds but I think there will be tubes left in for awhile to drain. And that's all I can say about that without feeling ill. YUCK.

The paperwork I was given says it will be 4 to 6 weeks after surgery before I'm feeling like myself again. I'm thinking it will be about this time I'll be able to eat normally again. I'm going to be living on "clear liquids" for a LONG time: Jello, apple juice, chicken broth... if you can't sorta see through it, I can't have it. Can you see through lobster rolls? :)

posted by Jen at 11:56 PM