karenulijohn

Yesterday morning, Dr. Graves’ office called to inform us of the date for Harvey’s surgery.  He will be required to check in at Sutter Medical Center Sacramento,  Thursday, October 20, 2016.  While it will mean an early morning for us to get there on time, I am glad that he will be one of the first surgeries of the day.  Our daughter, Dawn, will meet us and stay with me overnight so that we can visit Harvey together on Friday.  While no one necessarily volunteers for this type of surgery, Harvey said that he is relieved to have a date for the final stage of his treatment.

As we continue to live day to day, we are looking forward to Sunday when our daughter and grandson, Cole come for a visit.  We always enjoy their visits because we laugh and reminisce and share and generally enjoy each other’s company.  Cole has a particular fondness for Waffle Barn, so we will likely give him the chance to eat their entire menu at lunch.

I will write again after the surgery to apprise readers of Harvey’s condition, and endeavor to give regular updates.  Thank you all for your interest, your thoughts and prayers.

As most of you know, today was Harvey’s scheduled appointment with the surgeon, Dr. Graves, in Sacramento at 10:00 AM.  We left the house this morning at 8:00 AM in anticipation of rush hour traffic and the hassles of finding a suitable parking space.  Needless to say, we arrived at our destination 45 minutes later and had an hour and a quarter to kill.  Oh well, it gave us a chance to walk to Starbucks and enjoy a drink and a pastry.

We walked back to Dr. Graves office and were seen right away.  The first thing he said as he walked in the door was “Your PET scan was excellent; you are free of any cancer! You are the perfect candidate for being cured because you have responded so well to the treatment.  Now, let’s schedule your surgery!”  He then asked when Harvey’s last radiation treatment was and said that he makes a calculation based on that date to determine the optimum time to perform the surgery.  It turns out to be in the week of October 17th.  He would have done it next week, but he is out of town.  The actual date is yet to be scheduled, but we should know in a couple of days.  He told Harvey that his assignment between now and then is to get into the best physical shape that he can which means walking and building muscle with some weight training.  The better his physiological health and cardio-pulmonary health are, the better he will tolerate the surgery.

Dr. Graves will make an incision from the breast bone to the stomach, and, ideally work below the diaphragm and behind the beating heart.  He will excise the portion of the esophagus where the remnants of the tumor lie and all of the surrounding lymph nodes.  He will then reattach the stomach to the esophagus, a procedure known as Anastomosis.  The surgery itself will take three and a half hours, five hours including the anesthetic.   He will have an epidural pain catheter for three to five days and a tube in the nose called a nasogastric tube for nutritional support.  The tube will be removed after they give him a drink similar to barium and see that there is no Anastomotic leak, after which they will start him on a liquid diet.  Harvey will have to remain in the hospital for seven to nine days, the first two days of which will be in ICU.  Dr. Graves said that Harvey will experience good days and bad over the following several weeks, but by Christmas, he expects him to be living a healthy and full life.

This is a lot of information for anyone to digest in one morning, but we also realize that this is really the only option.  The Lord has been watching over us, and will continue to do so, I know.