First call from the nurse in surgery; 7:40 EST: "surgery has begun and he's doing well."
Cam checked into the hospital at noon yesterday for pre-op. He characteristically kept all the staff chuckling with his good-natured ways, and he took all the pre-op stuff like a champ. Literally didn't even make a sour face about all they put him through.
Unfortunately, he had a really rough night. The antibiotics they gave him made him horrifically ill. He was as miserable as I've ever seen him before they wheeled him in, but the nurse who just called assured me that he finally indicated a little relief from the anti-nausea meds before they put him under.
Keep those wonderful calls, texts, posts, emails, prayers, and good thoughts coming! Let's send Cam enough messages to give him a full-day's worth of reading when he's well enough to read and listen to them!
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Posted to Facebook:
2nd call from a nurse in surgery; 9:45 EST: "everything is progressing well and his body is responding well."
Since Peritoneal Mesothelioma doesn't show up well on CAT scans/PT scans, we've known that we wouldn't know the extent of Cam's disease until he was cut open. I asked the nurse if the doctor was seeing a lot of disease (it starts as a bunch of grains-of-sand-size nodules and spreads through the mucus/liquid/gel it creates).
But the nurse hadn't heard the doctor say yet how much disease he was seeing . . . she said that they go very slowly opening him up and getting in.
But it's progressing well! I've been praying all week that this will be a BEAUTIFUL surgery. It's happening. Prayers for Dr. Levine and his amazing staff. How grateful am I that a man has dedicated his life to this?
You're amazing, Cam!
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Posted to Facebook:
The HIPEC is the hot chemo bath that they do inside the abdominal wall for 90 minutes to 2 hours AFTER they've removed all the cancer they can see/are able to remove. They've started the infusion of chemo now. So, in two hours they'll start closing him up!
The nurse couldn't say, but this likely means that there wasn't a lot of disease to extract because this surgery can take as long as 12 hours . . .
But not my Cam! He's a rockstar. Rockin' this surgery! HIPEC king Cam! Doin' a little HIPEC dance sitting here in the waiting room . . . so is his mom Dorothy, which is way cuter I'm sure.
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Posted to Facebook:
Last update from the nurse in the surgery before the doctor will come out at the end; 1:40 pm EST: they finished the infusion and said the doctor would be out in about an hour. He's still doing well!
We've loved that families in the waiting area get a call every two hours with an update. BRILLIANT. A little prevention and good communication quells a million doubts and worries. It's helped the day to speed along -- not to mention the company of two good mamas and Robert and Scott, two dear family friends who live here.
I think this means that the scariest part is past; now we pray for clean sutures and closure, and that not a single invisible cancer cell has been left behind.
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