Home from Surgery
Misty and I just got home from the surgery. It went well. She is in a lot of pain, but doing ok.
The details:
We got to the hospital and went through the usual pre-surgery routine. Everyone was friendly. We ended up back in a hall outside of the operating room waiting to talk to the surgeon before the surgery. From the room two doors down, we could hear the doctor and the nurse discussing what sounded like Misty’s surgery. The bits and pieces that I could hear made it clear that they were concerned about something.
So, being the slightly over-anxious person that I am, I went in the office and asked if everything was ok. I was given the standard patronizing smile (extra large and overly fake) and was told that the doctor will be right out to discuss. So, here’s the deal. The doctor came out and told us that one of the medications that Misty is on (Avastin) has a warning from the manufacturer. A person taking the drug needs to be off it for 28 days before having surgery and cannot resume use untill 28 days after the surgery. So, the doctor obviously had some concerns. By the time he had gotten to us, he had already called our neuro-oncologist and discussed this. So, we had to weigh the pros and cons. Basically, this surgery would be significan’t higher risk for bleeding and clotting for misty than it would be for most people. However, declining the surgery would leave us in a place where Misty would have to have a series of temporary PICC lines put in her arm if she were going to get the chemo treatments (regular IV lines are not an option anymore, with her veins). A PICC line is very suseptible to infection and causes a significant amount of pain and discomfort while it is in. So (as you can tell by the subject line), we went through with the surgery. There aren’t too many options and the risks of clotting or bleeding are lower than the risk of infection with a PICC.
Misty is in a good bit of pain, but the doctor said the surgery went well. He doesn’t expect any problems. So that’s good news. Now, we will just be a little extra cautious for the next few days. Knowing us, we will inevitably be on google tonight trying to find every possible symptom of blood clotting and internal bleeding :)
