I start my last pre-surgery visit to Roswell Park Cancer Institute on Friday by sticking my nose into the phlebotomy unit to say hi and offering to give a blood sample just for old times' sake. No blood test on the agenda this time, I explain. Then at check-in in the urology department, the aide says yes, there will be a blood test and I should get it done right now. Back across the hall to phlebotomy and I put Justine to work. She's good at drawing blood. Hits the vein on the first try and it hardly hurts.
Then it's back over to urology to wait for the consultation with the surgeon, Dr. Guru. But first there's a session with a nurse's aide, answering questions about meds (no changes) and how I'm feeling (no pain). And then there's a session with an assistant to Dr. Guru, who explains a few things about the surgery. And finally, an hour after my appointed hour, there's Dr. Guru himself, who explains a few more things about the surgery.
The whole robot-assisted procedure will take about six hours (no coffee breaks?, I ask). There will be one larger incision and several smaller ones. I'll probably need blood transfusions. The incisions won't hurt so much afterward, he explains, but because my lower body will be elevated during the surgery and blood will collect in my head and upper body, I'll feel like I've been beaten up everywhere else. There will be a day or two in intensive care and not-so-intensive care, then a regular room. The whole hospital stay will be eight to 10 days.
When I get home, I'll be able to go up and down stairs, but not too many times a day. In Dr. Guru's estimation, I could return to near-normal activities in another four to five weeks, which is less than the three months I've been told to expect. Health proxy Bill Finkelstein remarks that I shouldn't rush things while I'm recovering.
Dr. Guru also goes over the list of complications and the chances that any of them would occur. The biggest one is infection, which happens almost half the time. I'll need to be careful. As for surviving the surgery and its aftermath, the chances are very good, more than 95 percent.
At any rate, he says I've come through chemo well. The CT scan shows there's no sign of cancer outside my bladder, although there's scarring on the inside. And for me to be completely cured, the bladder has to go, along with the prostate and a couple nearby lymph nodes. I shake hands with him as he leaves and tell him I have full confidence in him. Me and God, he says.
Then, running an hour and a half late, it's over to the anesthesiologist. But first they give me a quick EKG to check my heart. When the doc, Dr. Sroka, comes in, he says an EKG shouldn't have been necessary because I had one in December. It was a mistake to do it, but it turns out to be a fortunate mistake. The new EKG does not look like the old one. Did you have a heart attack? Dr. Sroka asks. Not that I know of, I say. Could the chemo have caused one? Was that why I was so weak in February?
Dr. Sroka says I'll need to see the cardiologist, but by this point he's gone for the day. They'll need to do a CT scan and maybe an angiogram. And then there's a consultation with the stoma nurse, which was added at the last minute to my Friday appointment list, but she's gone too. So this isn't my last visit to Roswell Park before surgery after all. I'll be back next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment