Surgery Update #2

Cool, UMC does have wi-fi.

The surgery is done.  Dr. Daniel drained three liters of fluid from around my left lung...that's almost seven pounds!  No wonder I couldn't  breathe.  As for that deflated lobe of my lung, he didn't even try to reinflate it.  He put a camera in my lung and saw that the bronchial tube is effectively pinched off by a tumor.  As he suspected, the tumor is not inside the tube but has grown around it.  So, that leaves me with a drain tube coming out of my side.  Sometime this afternoon, the doc should be coming back to show Kirsteen and I how to use the vacuum-bottles to tap off additional fluid.  After that, I should get to go home.  The doc expects that I'll have the drain in me for a handful of weeks, rather than months.

My oncologist, Dr. Garland, is considering radiation (Tomotherapy?) to go after that particular tumor, with the hope that we could open up that lower lobe.  I guess we'll see.  Meanwhile I get  a break for a couple of weeks until we start a new chemo regimen.