Finally, A Surgery Update

Wow.  The last two days have been quite a whirlwind, in a long waiting sort of way.  We came to SLC on Wednesday night so we wouldn't have to get up at 3:30 in the morning.  We met Trent's parents and sister at Little America for dinner.  We stayed there that night and I am pretty sure we had the same room we stayed in for our honeymoon.  We didn't get much sleep.  I was pretty nervous that we were going to be late so I kept waking up every half hour or so to check the clock.  That makes for a very short night!  We arrived at the U at 5:45 am to begin prep for surgery.  I was surprisingly calm and Trent was doing pretty well too.  

Nice hat Trent!

Serious moment with the anesthisiologist.

We finally got to meet Dr. Friedberg shortly before they wheeled Trent away. He was very quiet and not at all what I expected. There was a little bit of a nervous energy in the room but I still was not too nervous.

Dr. Friedberg, Trent, and Dr. Carr

Tracy, Joellynn, Doug, and Trent

Tracy brought cupcakes for all the surgical team and they loved it! We kept hearing all day how great they were.

Me and my Warrior

Saying goodbye to my patient!

When I told Trent goodbye a let a tear or two slip, I hate sending him off to the operating room. We have done that way too many times for my liking.

Me and Jan, a.k.a. Superwoman

Jan is Dr. Carr's "go to woman". She was the powerhouse behind getting Dr. Friedberg cleared to do surgery in SLC, which didn't finally get done until 4:20 the night before! She told me she wished she had a picture of my family that she could have shown the administration as she was begging for clearance. She and Dr. Carr have really gone to bat for Trent. Most of the administration was wondering why they would want to do such a risky surgery for a Stage IV sarcoma patient. Five little kids need a dad, that's why!

Surgery started at about 7:30 am. I had been receiving updates every couple of hours by phone from a nurse in the OR. The last update I heard at 6:15 pm was that it would be about 45 minutes before Dr. Carr came to talk to me. I had barely picked up a magazine when Dr. Carr was standing in front of me. "How was your day?" he asked. I was so shocked to see him that I was caught off guard. I asked how his day went and when he said, "Great", I burst into tears and jumped up and gave him a huge hug. I turned around to find Dr. Friedberg. He was literally standing behind some plants. I motioned him over and he very hesitatingly stepped out from behind his "shield". I am pretty sure I was totally invading his bubble when I hugged him. His hug was about as stiff as a board so I went back to Dr. Carr for a better one. :)

The surgery went well and they were able to remove all humanly detectable evidence of disease. They resected a couple of enlarged lymph nodes early on in the surgery. We knew they were enlarged but they had not really changed on any of the scans so no one was too worried about them. They will be sent to pathology. We were really hoping to find a dead tumor in there but that was not exactly the case. There was actually more growth than the last scan showed. There was a tumor that was growing onto the chest wall and one that was butting up to the heart. Dr. Carr and Dr. Friedberg removed the entire left lung, the lining of the chest, then diaphragm on the left side, and part of the pericardium. They rebuilt the diaphragm and the pericardium and called in the cardiac surgeon to remove the stuff on his heart. It was only about the size of a dime but they wanted the guy with the heart specialty to take care of that.

Early on in the surgery they had discovered the tumor on the heart but Dr. Friedberg insisted that he did not fly all the way from Philly to not do the surgery. That's when they decided they would invite the cardiac surgeon to take care of that spot. Dr. Friedberg was very complimentary about the job the Dr. Carr did and they were both pleased with the outcome. They said about three times that there is NO EVIDENCE OF DISEASE! Yet, there is possibly still microscopic disease so we will follow up with chemo and radiation after Trent has recovered from this surgery. After we talked to the docs we had to wait about two more hours to see Trent. I was bracing myself for a pretty scary sight but this is what I got...

Trent, about two hours post op

Not too bad! The scariest thing was the IV in his neck, not too pretty to look at. He was still pretty comfortable except for all down his right side he had some pretty angry looking pressure spots. Those have been bothering him all day today. Trent was doing well enough that I whipped out my phone and started recording.

I left Trent last night and went to stay at Josh's house a few minutes away.  As soon as my head hit the pillow I was asleep.  I know I didn't move all night long.  I was soooo tired and had been fighting a headache all day long.  I am sure it was mostly nerves.  When I arrived at the hospital the next morning I found Trent looking like this...

15 hours post op

Not too bad!  Dr. Carr and Dr. Friedberg said that the surgery Trent had is about the biggest one that is done.  I am sure the enormity of the situation has not fully hit me yet.  It is a little weird watching him breathe and having only one side of his chest rise and fall.  This afternoon Dr. Carr showed me pictures of what was removed from Trent's body.  I will spare you all the beauty of that picture!  I asked him how big it was because I couldn't really tell from the picture.  I was expecting about the size of a small loaf of bread but it was much larger than that.  It was about 4 pounds and almost the size of a dish towel.  Yikes! 

Trent has done okay today.  They are keeping him somewhat "dry" to keep his lung from having to work to hard yet.  It is a fine balance because they don't want to ruin his kidneys either.  They know they are going to stress out the kidneys but in Dr. Carr's words, "you have two of those and they bounce right back".  It is all about protecting that one lung now.

Trent received two units of blood today because it is a little more effective in getting fluid into Trent without messing up the balance and keeping his blood pressure high enough.  Late this evening they started him on some medicine to help with the blood pressure.  It is pretty low because they are keeping Trent slightly dehydrated for now.  Trent was really tired today and not able to rest very much.  The ICU is definitely not a place for rest.  We are both looking forward to getting to the Huntsman to a floor bed but that won't be for a few more days.  He is for sure not going home until next Friday and maybe later than that depending on how he is doing.

28 hours post op

Thank you so much for the prayers, good thoughts, fasting, and support! I have felt it so much and am so grateful! We are humbled again as we reflect on the past two days and look to the days ahead. I can't really believe it is happening to us. We have been lifted up and sustained in ways that I never could have dreamed possible. This experience has been life changing, to what extent I am not yet sure. But as Jan said, "It has been deliberate and purposeful." I believe that with all of my heart.