Liver Surgery Date & Other Info

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We went to the hospital for an appt. with Dr. Clark (surgeon) this afternoon.
He is the one that will be doing the liver surgery. 

He showed us MRI images and explained where the remaining big tumors are located, and the process of the liver resection. He said he will be taking out most of the right lobe of the liver. He estimates he will be removing 65 to 70 percent of the liver. 

We asked him if he would be doing it laparoscopically or if it would be an open surgery, and he said it would be open, because of the amount of liver that needs to be removed, along with a few other things.

All in all the appointment went very well. He was very informative, and answered all of our questions.

He scheduled the surgery for Friday October 1st. 

That is the soonest he could get it scheduled because of Covid. I won't go into all of the details of why this surgery is considered "elective", but it is, and we can't change that. The hospital is pushing all elective surgeries out, because they need the ICU beds for covid patients. 
Dr. Clark said that with Christian's age and health, the chances that she would need an ICU bed after surgery are very slim, but he can't do the surgery if there is a chance there will be no open ICU bed just in case. It is understandable.   

He said following the surgery she will be in the hospital for 4-5 days. 
Following that, she will be home recovering. He said it will take 6-8 weeks to be completely over the surgery and feeling back to normal.

With that said, Christian's last Chemo treatment was on August 9th. It would be pushing 8 weeks time between then and the Oct 1st surgery date with no chemo. Dr. Paluri (oncologist) did not want her to go that long without treatment. So they have scheduled her 9th chemo treatment on Tuesday September 7th (the day after labor day).

That is all the info we received today and the plan moving forward at this point.

Just wanted to share the info. Thanks for all of the thoughts & prayers. 

-Kenny

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