Surgery Delayed

I was supposed to have an open retroperitoneal lymphadenectomy at 7:30am this morning. The difficult surgery takes several hours. My father and I woke up this morning at 4am, were at the hospital at 5:15am, and informed by a nurse at 6am in the surgery waiting room that my surgeon had cancelled his surgeries for the day. He had a major family emergency.

Having the surgery cancelled when I’m at the hospital in the waiting room after months of waiting is very disappointing. However, he is putting family first as he should. We wish him and his family the best. I understand how important family is. My father and brother are going to take care of me after my surgery, which I mentioned last night with this photo:

The surgery is also called a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection (RPLND). A wide cut is made across the abdomen and tumorous lymph nodes are removed from the back of the abdomen. “People who have a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection are usually sent home 3–7 days after surgery.” The chemotherapy shrunk my tumors by about 80%. The residual 20% is going to be removed and analyzed in the lab. He estimates the likelihood that the tissue is malignant at 20%, which is the worst-case and would probably mean more chemotherapy. There is a 40% chance that it is just scar tissue or necrosis. There is 40% chance that it is teratoma, which is fine as long as it gets removed. You want to remove the teratoma to avoid “its risk of degenerating into other aggressive malignancies that are difficult to treat.” Hopefully, the surgery gets rescheduled in the fairly near future.