Friday, October 16, 2009

Update

Just got home from the surgeon's office and it's good and bad news. The good news is that he said he's never done a surgery like this that turned out poorly. The bad news is that he's adding her to his list of surgical patients sooner than later.

Sooner like next month sooner.

It's fine. We are fine. In a way the silver lining is that since we've met our deductible for this year the surgery won't be as incredibly expensive as it would be otherwise. The other good news is that he said she will not suffer some of the possible side effects of having weird uninvited guests in her chest because it will be gone after surgery.

Oh and big news: he thinks it might not even be CCAM, but another condition called Pulmonary Sequestration. It's basically the same treatment--He will use a scope to figure out exactly what it is and then if it's CCAM he will remove it with a small instrument and that'll be it. If it's the Pulmonary thing he will have to make an incision on her left side about an inch and a half long and remove it. He said either way it's major surgery but it's not anything he's worried about.

Whew. That makes me feel better.

Really it does.

You want your child's surgeon to be super confident, right? Even arrogant is fine with me!

I forgot to ask so many questions and when I talked to Sean (he was on a break in Atlanta which was awesome!) he of course thought of everything I meant to ask. The main question was the size of the mass. It's about 5 cm in diameter, which is much bigger than what we thought. Because I had to get his nurse to pull him out of another patients' room he sat for a few minutes and talked with me some more and then gave me copies of the reports in her file.

Trying to translate Chinese suddenly seems pretty easy compared to that.

Anyway.

We weren't sure where he will do the surgery but he told us today it will be at Medical City in Dallas and it should take 2-4 hours. Then recovery will be two days in the hospital and three more days at home before she feels "normal." All of this was good to find out and after meeting with him we feel better, more informed. Now we know what's coming and we can pray accordingly.

Gotta run but that's the update. We will set it up next week and get the ball rolling.
Thanks for praying!

8 comments:

ThePoeFam said...

WOW! I'll be in prayer, for sure!!!...And, yes, I'll take an arrogant surgeon please! :)

We Three Smiths + 1 said...

We are praying for Sweet Joy and your whole family. Let us know if you need anything at all!!!

Michelle said...

You guys will be in our prayers.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting Mary, we will certainly be praying!

Carley said...

We are praying for you...glad you have such a confident surgeon!

Carley said...

We are praying for you...glad you have such a confident surgeon!

Emily said...

praying for you all and precious Joy. Please let us know when a date is set!

Lisa said...

Mary thinking of you and your beautiful family during this time. Joy is going to do great!!!