Back and Forth - Surgery scheduled
Dib's (new nickname courtesy of biggest sister) CT was last week. It went well, her chubby little hands made it hard to put in an IV. She had 5 pin pricks before they decided to go with her foot. She was fawned over by everyone in sight, and even though it was a long day, she got through it fine.
Our follow-up with her surgeon was today. Little (not really) bugger gained nearly a pound in five days! We were told repeatedly that she was obviously thriving, and her smiles confirmed that for us.
We were shown the CT images twice. For the first time since she was inside of me we got a view of the mass. This view was slightly more detailed than others, and was taken mostly so that her surgeon has a road map for surgery. We knew her mass still existed, and as long as it did, it needed to be removed. Left in, she would be prone to repeated bouts of pneumonia and would have an increased chance of developing cancer.
We were shown two views of her lungs. In both cases, she looks perfectly normal a little less than halfway down her lungs. Then her lower left lung starts showing up black. Many minuscule cysts make up her lower left lobe. Some are larger, and some are smaller, but together they show up much darker than her healthy lung tissue.
So, this all needs to be removed, and she'll undergo a lobectomy. Her surgeon wants to do this as non-invasively as possible. She plans on starting with an epidural, a scope and video feed. However, there is a chance that this "sticky" tissue can fuse to her surrounding organs, including her heart, in which case she'll need a small incision to better address all that.
Overall, her surgery should take about 4 hours. We'll be updated throughout. She'll have a chest tube to drain extra gas and fluid from the area. Her hospital duration kind of depends on how quickly this goes. Some can get there in 2-3 days, some a week or so.
We scheduled this all for December 20th. On our way out of the parking structure I realized this comes REALLY close to Christmas, and happens to land at the exact same time as Boy Wonder's first ever holiday concert at school. I went from feeling relieved this is all one step closer to being resolved, to being pretty bummed that I'll for sure miss Boy Wonder in his school program, if not the whole Christmas celebration. I thought of the new Christmas dress I bought for Dibs and got a lump in my throat.
I took for granted how well Dibs has done. She's HUGE, her first instinct is to smile, and I swear to everything that is holy that she is starting to sing. I would never, NEVER guess that something is wrong with her. Surely she's not in pain when she's so happy, right? Is she just good-natured and the face of this beast is being hidden by that? Her surgery landing right in the midst of the holidays and seeing her lungs for the first time in awhile has kind of brought the whole ordeal back into the light. She isn't out of the woods, and as upbeat as I've tried to be, I can't help but being a little sad for my little nugget and our whole family.
This all could be because I found out about Boy Wonder's concert just over an hour ago. I imagine I'll be back to seeing how AMAZINGLY this has turned out and go from there. Right now I'm trying to remind myself of that, because it's kind of hard to not be bummed out about the whole thing.
Meanwhile, I'm not going to worry too much about our plans being upset or about Dibs wearing a chest tube instead of her cute little red and white jumper. So what? We'll be fine. We have so much to be thankful for this year. And we have SO much to look forward to next year :)
Our follow-up with her surgeon was today. Little (not really) bugger gained nearly a pound in five days! We were told repeatedly that she was obviously thriving, and her smiles confirmed that for us.
We were shown the CT images twice. For the first time since she was inside of me we got a view of the mass. This view was slightly more detailed than others, and was taken mostly so that her surgeon has a road map for surgery. We knew her mass still existed, and as long as it did, it needed to be removed. Left in, she would be prone to repeated bouts of pneumonia and would have an increased chance of developing cancer.
We were shown two views of her lungs. In both cases, she looks perfectly normal a little less than halfway down her lungs. Then her lower left lung starts showing up black. Many minuscule cysts make up her lower left lobe. Some are larger, and some are smaller, but together they show up much darker than her healthy lung tissue.
So, this all needs to be removed, and she'll undergo a lobectomy. Her surgeon wants to do this as non-invasively as possible. She plans on starting with an epidural, a scope and video feed. However, there is a chance that this "sticky" tissue can fuse to her surrounding organs, including her heart, in which case she'll need a small incision to better address all that.
Overall, her surgery should take about 4 hours. We'll be updated throughout. She'll have a chest tube to drain extra gas and fluid from the area. Her hospital duration kind of depends on how quickly this goes. Some can get there in 2-3 days, some a week or so.
We scheduled this all for December 20th. On our way out of the parking structure I realized this comes REALLY close to Christmas, and happens to land at the exact same time as Boy Wonder's first ever holiday concert at school. I went from feeling relieved this is all one step closer to being resolved, to being pretty bummed that I'll for sure miss Boy Wonder in his school program, if not the whole Christmas celebration. I thought of the new Christmas dress I bought for Dibs and got a lump in my throat.
I took for granted how well Dibs has done. She's HUGE, her first instinct is to smile, and I swear to everything that is holy that she is starting to sing. I would never, NEVER guess that something is wrong with her. Surely she's not in pain when she's so happy, right? Is she just good-natured and the face of this beast is being hidden by that? Her surgery landing right in the midst of the holidays and seeing her lungs for the first time in awhile has kind of brought the whole ordeal back into the light. She isn't out of the woods, and as upbeat as I've tried to be, I can't help but being a little sad for my little nugget and our whole family.
This all could be because I found out about Boy Wonder's concert just over an hour ago. I imagine I'll be back to seeing how AMAZINGLY this has turned out and go from there. Right now I'm trying to remind myself of that, because it's kind of hard to not be bummed out about the whole thing.
Meanwhile, I'm not going to worry too much about our plans being upset or about Dibs wearing a chest tube instead of her cute little red and white jumper. So what? We'll be fine. We have so much to be thankful for this year. And we have SO much to look forward to next year :)
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