Friday, April 15, 2011

What's Coming Up

The plan for Shelley in the immediate future is to have her undergo surgery a week from next Thursday, July 27, 2011. It will be done in Salt Lake City, at the Intermountain Healthcare Center just off of 52nd South sometime in the afternoon.

They call it a debulking surgery. Typically, they open patients up from just below the bottom of the lungs to the pelvic bone to do debulking — removing and scraping out whatever is cancerous that can be done reasonably.

With her, the plan is to go in and do a laparoscopy first to look around and see what they think is prudent to work on and remove. It might entail the long convertible incision of our regular debulking procedure, but it might not, too. It depends on what they see through their scope and what seems the most sensible thing to do. Sometimes they can remove the most affected tissue through small incisions. For example, in Shelley's case, the omentum is involved. Sometimes the omentum can be removed through a smaller incision. Same with ovaries.

In the interim, Shelley needs to work on getting stronger. The big prescription for that is eating and drinking lots of proteins and getting some small degree of exercise.

Lately, Shelley's oxygen levels have been back to normal or near normal. She has ceased wearing oxygen all the time and now just wears her when she's asleep, and then because of sleep apnea.

After the surgery, she will have to be in the hospital a few days — from two or 3 to 5 to 7, just depending on what they do. Afterward, they planning on her having some physical therapy to build your strength up. Also, as soon as she can she'll go back on chemotherapy.

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