Wednesday, March 6, 2002

Kathy's surgery

Just a quick note about Kathy's surgery. It went quite well, despite some unexpected findings. She had endometriosis in addition to her (benign) fibroid tumor of the uterus. It took about 2 hours, but there were no complications.

So far her recovery has been astounding! She came to the ward in almost no pain. On arrival, the nurse asked her about her pain, on a scale of one to ten; she looked puzzled and said, "Maybe a one?"

I left the hospital at about 7:30. By then she had already downed three glasses of ice chips and had moved on to a clear liquid tray (yum!). She sipped the broth and said "This is really good." (!?)

No nausea, no usual post-op pain, alert and coherent. She is just doing superbly. I'm so glad to have at least that matter off my mind.

I'm still feeling pretty well. My liver seems to have healed; the tests yesterday were almost completely normal on the liver functions; my white count went up a bit, however, to 23,000. I suspect it will wax and wane, or perhaps it is returning to "normal" after having been suppressed by the (apparent) superimposed viral infection. Next week I get my abdomen CT'ed, to rule out any evidence of lymphoma. I'll see heme/onc Thursday, as I think I already mentioned.

I'll try to send out another message tomorrow night when I get home to let you know how Kathy's doing.

Bye for now,

Dave