Cancer Guy

* Surgery day is Tuesday 1/9/2007
* Surgeon is Dr. Fong
* Surgery covers liver resection
* Surgery will be around 5-6 hours
* Location is at 1275 York Avenue (between 68th and 69th St.)
* Will stay at the hospital for about 10 days after surgery

The cell phone alarm went off at 6:45am..
It was so cold in the morning, I really didnt feel like getting out of bed. The side effect of Oxaliplatin kicks in especially when it’s colder. My fingers and toes are a little more stiff/numb. After about 10 mins, I finally dragged my butt up and got ready to go. Today, there’s pre-admission testing for the surgery(8:15am) and appointment with the surgeon Dr. Fong (10:30am). When I arrived at 7th floor for PAT, I was told there are some paper work required from the doctor in order for them to give me the testing. A slight mis-scheduling, but Dr. Fong was able to see me earlier, so I went down to the 3rd floor.

First I saw nurse Lisa, who gave me an overview of the surgery and what to prepare for the surgery. Basically I need to be on liquid diet and take magnesium citrate to “clean” the bowl the day before surgery. She also gave me a packet which includes the liquid diet instruction and liver resection booklet. Then Scott came in to talked to me about the study they are doing on cancer tissues obtained from surgery/pathology. Usually the tissues are disgarded or used for research, but the government now requires the hospital to obtain signed consent from the patient. I agreed to the study of course. After that Dr. Mansour came and introduced himself. He is the partner of Dr. Fong and will be the one making rounds daily to see the patients at the hospital. He just wanted to say hello in advance. Finally Dr. Fong came. He described to me what will be done at the surgery and have me sign the consent form. Basically the surgery covers liver resection, exploration and removal for possible lymph node cancer cells, and gall bladder removal. Gall bladder removal was kinda a surprise. Good thing I have spoken to Ed, a cancer survivor, who had similar condition as me and told me he’s gall bladder was removed during surgery. I asked the doctor why, he explained that the the gall bladder is like the fingers, and liver is like the hand/arm, the fingers can’t be there when hand/arm is gone. Interesting analogy. The gallbladder’s function is to store the bile/gall and release it when eating food containing fat. There are a quite a few people I know that had their gallbladder taken out. It seems to be ok without one. hmm…

After the doctor’s appointment, I received the paper work for pre-admission testing. It involves checking the vitals (blood pressure, heart beat, body temperature), blood work (4 tubes of blood), EKG (cardiac rhythm analysis) and urine sample. Also got an X-ray of upper body. At the end, a nurse came with questions on medical history, current medication, etc

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007 @ 10:45 pm on the category Cancer, Surgery, Tumor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.