ok, so on my last day before surgery, I ate a cheeseburger for lunch, an omelet for dinner, and a brownie for dessert. Anyone notice there were 3 no-nos in there? bread, meat and chocolate! paying the price,  but it was SO worth it.

I will be out of the loop for awhile, but I have asked my sister to "guest blog" for me. Ohhhh I feel so journalistic or something...

for now, I sign off....

 ...my parting bit of wisdom...

one more favorite quote,

Mom: "Ben, is that your old spiderman suit?"
Ben sighing deeply, "yeah, I really don't want to be the spiderman, but,"  (*deep sigh and looking down*)" the city needs me.".

SOMEBODY doesn't like footballers...

Since tomorrow is my last day as a functioning grown up for some time, I am trying like crazy to get my house in order, clean out the fridge, organize stuff for the kids last weeks of school, get laundry done, you know, all the stuff I know will be fine without me, but I am being too anal to ignore. Life seems to be conspiring against me though.

Yesterday little Nathan missed the bus to his field trip  (long story) , so I ended up taking him down to San Diego to catch up with his class. (read: no chores done that morning). Today,  I was DETERMINED to get that fridge cleaned out before my surgery, so I did it while the kids ate their breakfast. After I came home from taking the kids to school, I found that the dog had gotten into the newly filled trash and spread BBQ ribs all over the carpet in both the family room and living room. (I was mad at my doggy BTW)  It took me an hour and a half to scrub that all clean and I STILL haven't  started on my list. *sigh*

Hey at least I got the fridge clean...

what the surgeon said

 I was just too tired to write sooner and the kids were all were fighting the flu. Now it is Hubbys turn. He is on the bed behind me totally miserable.


But as to the details of the surgery, it will be broken up into 2 parts.

Part 1 will be on June 4th. Check in will be at 5 am. with me having nothing to eat from midnight. surgery will start at around 7 ish and end at around noonish.  During this part Dr Soukiasian will do an endoscope to peek around on the inside of my esophagus. He will also do a laproscopic staging to physically see exactly the stage of cancer.  Then, if all goes well, he said he will remove some blood vessels around the stomach to prepare it for Monday. He will also place the feeding tube.  I will go home on Saturday hopefully around  noon or 1:00. A home health care nurse will follow up that weekend to make sure we are taking care of the feeding tube. and that all is going well.

Part 2 will be on the 7th. Again, check in will be @ 5am with surgery starting at around 7:00 ish. Insisions will be in my abdomen, right side and neck.  I will have my esophagus removed laproscopically, the stomach cut lengthwise and fitted as a tube, and finally stitched into place as my new esophagus. I will have drains and tubes in quite a few places and hubby will not be able to see me until 2 or 3 that afternoon.

here is a break down of what will happen and HOPEFULLY when:

*1-2 days in ICU
*up and walking within 24 to 48 hours
*feeding tube starts again on day 1
*walking every day
*every hour, must do coughing and breathing exercises
*physiological therapy ( basically a rough back massage to loosen up phlem and gross stuff)
*a swallow study done 5 to 7 days post surgery
 *if no leaks i start to drink fluids the next day
*ideally chest drain tubes would also be removed at that time, but depends on how I am doing.
*I get to have my own pain meds button (woo hoo)
*I will be in the hospital 7 to 10 days
*at home, feeding tube stays in for minimum of 3 months.
*dumping is a small risk, but nowhere near as large as it would have been without the botox being injected into my pyloric valve. (usually doctors just cut it and permanently damage it, but my surgeon injects it with botox to let it heal slowly on its own).I am pretty impressed by that BTW.

He did say that 60 to 80 percent of patients have SOME sort of complications but most of the time they are just nuisances rather that life threatening, especially where he does his incision in the neck instead of the chest.

According to him, for, me, I have about a 20 percent chance of leakage because of the radiation I had done. Radiation destroys blood vessels and causes scar tissue to form. It also inhibits healing. I am not that worried though, because he does his incision in the neck, not the chest. He said that if there is a leak in the neck, its not that big of a deal, drain it and I will be fine. If the insision were in the chest, if there were a leak, it could kill me. Since that is not an option, I really dont mind a big scar on the side of my neck...

The risk of death during this surgery for me will be anywhere from 1 to 4 percent.  Not to bad considering the "high rent district" he will be mucking about in!!!

no updates today, too pooped, but I found something kind of interesting. I have already googled the crap out of anything having to do with my doctor, this surgery, Cedar Sinai, esophageal cancer , you name it. My bookmarks list is about 4 columns thick... But just recently, I was googling videos, I was trying to find a story about one of Dr Soukiasians older patients that beat this monster and was on his way to the Bahamas, when I found this rare gem! I was tickled to see it showed exactly the type of surgery I will be having as well as my doctor in action ( don't worry, nothing too graphic...) .

For right now, I am exhausted. Had my lungs tested today. The trip home today took a lot out of me. Big accident (luckily no serious injuries) on the 91 with a nice Hollywood style explosion and everything ~ made for a LONG drive home.

this is a pic I pulled from the LA times of the after math.

What is it they say, about the best laid plans... I had everything coordinated out perfectly, which kids was going to be picked up by what person and so forth - when 2 of the 3 came down with the flu. We could not in good conscious, ask people to expose themselves and their kids. SO Cary stayed home with all the sick kiddos, and I made the trip to LA alone. I think it was harder on Cary than me!  

ok, as far as the cancer goes, we had a bit of a set back, but it's all good. PET scan showed and "inflamed" lymph node up in my neck. It could be me just fighting an infection- or it could be cancer. Either way, Dr. Soukiasian will be removing it come the 7th anyway. We will find out if it was cancerous  about a week after surgery when the pathology reports come back.

I will post more detail tomorrow about what we talked about, but for now I am just so pooped I think I am very close to falling asleep while sittin........ zzzz......

I am just walking like a mad person to try to get in as much outside time as I can ~ as well as trying to make sure my recovery is as good as it can be.

Bunches of new tests coming up. We are trying to get them all done in 2 days (this upcoming Thursday and Friday) so we won't have to keep making trips up to LA every SINGLE day, so I will have a bit of a marathon for those couple of days. I have the kids all farmed out to different friends on Thursday, and Haley (Cary's beautiful daughter) will come up on. Friday to take care of them. Thank you to all who are helping with that. Also, I wanted to clarify exactly who family is, so you don't all get confused when I start mentioning names and I have forgotten to introduce them properly...

Dad AKA Cary	Mom AKA me	Carly	Josh	Haley
Aaron	Daniel	Nathan	Jonah	Ben
jasper	Grrrrr

Well, still no PET scan result, but they must not have been too horrid. I will call on monday if I don't get a call by then.

I did get a call from Dr Soukiasian's ( the surgeon) nurse. I was trying to find out the name of the surgery ( there are different TYPES of  esophagectomies ) and she told me it was kind of a hybrid of different types of Minimally Invasive Laparoscopic  surgery. But the basics will still be the same. Dr Soukiasian will turn my tummy into a tube to function as my new esophagus. Long story short.

I found a site that a daughter is keeping for her dad who just underwent surgery that I found really helpful. I know a lot of you have been asking and asking what we should expect next, and I just stare blankly into space because I have no clue. Bearing in mind that everyone is different, I am posting a link to that site so you can kind of get an idea. I believe he had his surgery all in one day, and I will be having mine split into two, but the idea is the same. Here it is, and I love the title by the way... (Warmest thanks to them for giving me permission to link to my site as well as the wonderful letters of support.)

As far as dates, June 4th is a short day. Exploratory, take a peek around, put in whatever ports or tubes I need, push through tissue that doesn't want to be pushed, that sort of thing. On June 7th, well that will be the big 'un.  I will then be esophagus free from that day on. Well, sort of.

I will be in the hospital 7 to 10 days.

Another PET scan today. this time it will be of the whole body to make sure no little critters escaped. I am much happier this time as I could actually eat my protein this time instead of pureeing it. I had eggs last night for dinner! I will let you know what it says as soon as I know :)

 I think this facility needs to be taught about the wheel...

more favorite quotes

"we should ask the scientists to change our car into a drill so we could dig deep in the earth to search for dinosaur bones, and diamonds and mole people." - my son Nathan

"...those kids fight like wild chimpanzees on steroids and cocaine. Enough to where you may want to break it up with a broom stick rather risk a infected secondary wound." - My husband talking about our youngest sons.

"This is to all us guys who do dishes. Do not wash a piece of Tupperware...you used to soak a carburetor in gas and carb cleaning liquid... in the dishwasher."  - my hubby

" Mom, make sure you take a deep breath and bring an extra pencil with a BIG eraser".  - Nathan when I told him I had to get lots of tests done in L.A.

When I asked my son Ben if I could help catch the bad guys, he very seriously looked at me and said, " No Mom ~ deep sigh~  I work alone.".

"Mom, could you please pause the story, I need to get a  drink of water." - Ben when I was reading to him one night.

"That Joe don't have a very good memory does he Mom." - Ben while watching a Blues Clues  episode where Joe was trying to get the kids to guess the answer.

When I told Jonah he needed to get dressed for school before he watched TV , he said " MAN, no'fin  'bout dis is wight!"

I was reading to the boys, "The Berenstien Bears, Too Much TV", the part when Momma Bear says no TV for a week, and Nathan said " and that's mean right?"

 

Not a quote, but I LOVED it when Jonah figured out how to "work the system" at school. He noticed when he was riding the bike at school other kids would do pesky things like ask for a turn. He figured out that if he used the scooter track instead of  the bike track ~ the kids would forget about him and go play something else.  What a smart kid!

Oh and on a scale from 1 to 10 my pain level is a big fat 0 !!!!!!