On Wednesday we had a consult with the surgeon! Apparently the results from the CT scan taken over a week ago shows that the primary tumor is still there! My hope - since March - was that his primary tumor would have shrunk enough / completely so that he didn't need surgery but I guess my expectation was set to high! Although that has been my wish for a while, when I heard the news I was not devastated that the expectation did not come to pass. I guess a part of me thought that I was hoping to much and I just left everything up to the powers that be! If it was meant to happen it will happen - which apparently it did not!
The current plan is for Jonathan to have surgery on Tuesday (7th June). Since the tumor is small - about 3.6 cm x 1.9 cm - his operation would only last about two hours - provided that there are no complications. I remember the surgeon telling us that he has operated on a kid whose primary tumor was so large, that the operation took 23 hours! I don't know how they do it - but I'm glad I'm an engineer and not a doctor!
As we get nearer and nearer to the surgery date, I can see Gabby getting more and more stressed out. For me, I'm also worried but I guess with all my other activities, e.g. work, it's a bit easier to compartmentalize and not focus too many brain processes on worrying about the surgery. Our meeting with our therapist on Saturday was helpful and we have a (potential) new plan of action that may help Gabby deal with the stress a bit better. I think Jonathan is a bit worried about Tuesday as well. Gabby has explained (somewhat) that he will be going into the hospital on Tuesday and that they are going to take out the 'lumps' - I'm not sure what is the exact word she used. When she told him he got sad. I tried to have a conversation about it with him last night but he didn't want to talk about it. He decided to play a game on interrupting me whenever I started to talk - and plus he was having a good time last night so I decided to drop it.
It's unfortunate he has to go through the surgery. Because of the amount of pain he might experience, he will get an epidural that will be put in his back (not on his spine) to help with delivering the pain medications more locally to the surgery area. After the surgery he will also have a tube coming out of his stomach to help with letting out air and some other stuff (I cannot even remember). I guess after the surgery I'll know more about it. My only worry is that after the surgery, Jonathan may have to go to ICU and the problem with that is if he is sleeping, we wouldn't be able to stay at his bed side. If that happens this will be the first time he'll be in the hospital by himself for any extended period of time. Of course we will still be in the hospital but just not at his side - but I'm hopeful - and so is the surgeon - that Jonathan will not have to go to ICU.
Moving on to good news - I spoke to Jonathan's primary doctor on Friday afternoon. The results from his bone marrow aspirate came back negative. His bone marrow is now clear of cancer cells! They still have to wait on the results from a more sensitive test but at least microscopically he is clear of cancer in his bone marrow. This is excellent news and it confirms that Jonathan is moving in the right direction - but for some reason I wasn't ecstatic about the news. A friend of mine was saying I must be very happy with the news - but for some reason I see this more as a step in the right direction and one less thing to worry about - instead of being overly joyful about the news. I guess once his active therapy is done - then I'll celebrate!
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