Today, Cheryl, me, and my two sisters, Connie and Karen from D.C, drove over to Houston to have a last minute visit with Dr. Yu (not to be confused with Dr. Vu who we saw last week!) Dr. Yu is my plastic surgeon. He will be working on me tomorrow along with Dr. Lai. Riding over was a bit of fun. Try riding in a Toyota RAV4 with suitcases big enough to outfit three ladies for a week, then add in four people. To say it was full was an understatement!. (And I brought very little with me, since I will be wearing hospital stuff for the next few days.)
Reconstructive Surgery
We got to M.D. Anderson about 30 minutes before our appointment, and had just enough time to ride the golf cart over to the Mays Clinic from the main building. (I spotted a sign for the walkers who use the covered walkway as an exercise track. It feels longer, but it is only 1/3 mile between buildings. Most of the staff walk, and patients ride the carts, and they have quite a few of them wandering between buildings.)
We only had to wait about 15 minutes before I was called in. Cheryl's fishies basically ignored her, which was a first for our visits to this place. It looked like they were expecting feeding any minute, and would not leave the top of the tank where we suspect food would drop in on some schedule.
We did another round of the "vitals" theft, and the numbers were not as good as last week. My blood pressure was up, the scale still lied, and the nurse could not get the temperature machine to do anything. Eventually, she got everything written down, and we were led into our waiting room. Tick Tock, Tick Tock! The waiting game again!
Dr. Yu's assistant, Brooke came in for our initial check and talk. Brooke is from Nebraska, so she and Cheryl talked about that "Go Big Red" stuff for a few minutes. She had me change into a hospital "gown" so Dr. Yu could inspect possible areas where he might steal skin for his work in my mouth. Once she was done, she left and fetched Dr. Yu.
Not So Good News
Dr. Yu came in and proceeded to peek into my mouth. He declared that the tumor was visible and looked like it probably does intrude into the bone. He then went over how they would deal with that if it was true, and that discussion was not pleasant at all.
Basically, he might need to remove a good chunk of my lower jawbone on the left side. That includes a few teeth on that side as well, and will leave me with basically nothing over there. That was a surprise, to say the least.
To fix that, he plans on stealing bone from my "very good looking athletic" leg, together with some skin he will use to build me a new jawbone. They apparently attach a titanium plate or rod to stabilize the bone as it grows into place, and that metal will stay in place. Dr. Yu said that this would be the extreme case, and he would probably do this if it looked like they had a good chance to remove all the cancer in the area. He also said I would look as good as possible, much better than if they just removed the bone and let things slide around with the right side jawbone alone.
None of this sounds very nice, but, once again, we have to trust their extensive experience in all this and just know they will do what is necessary to keep me going.
Dr. Lai is in change of all of this, and he may find this extensive procedure is not needed. In that case, I may just have some skin from my arm taken to patch up whatever they need to remove, if the entire jawbone does not need to go.
Once again, I will go to sleep and wake up as Version 5.0 with no idea what happened until someone tells me!
Not fun!
Before we left, Brooke told us that Dr. Yu is one to the top surgeons doing this kind of work in this country, and probably in the entire world. Like I have said before, being a patient at M.D. Anderson is about as good as it gets in fighting this evil cancer beast, so we are both extremely grateful for that. Even if the thought of what might happen will keep me awake tonight.
I went through the same things on my last surgery, and woke up to find my left eye gone. I managed to survive that, and I will survive this as well. Tomorrow will tell!
Vampire Snacks
After we left Dr. Yu's area, we had to go fill out some papers and sign away my body for the work to be done tomorrow. Then we needed to go back to the vampire feeding area to provide more blood. Apparently, your blood type might spontaneously change every day or so, so the blood work we did last week is not valid for the surgery tomorrow. They want more blood to prove my blood type is still what it has been for something approaching 70 years now. Funny stuff, these hospital rules!
Dinner and Attempts at Sleep
We were done in about three hours today, and headed to the La Quinta where Cheryl and my sisters will base themselves while I lounge in recovery for how ever many days I am here. It could be a week, it all depends.
We found a neat restaurant called "House of Pies" near the motel and had a nice dinner (comfort food, and, yes, they did have a lot of pies in that place!) We all managed to get back to the motel for a little sleep before we have to leave in the morning around 4:45.
Unfortunately, getting into our rooms was a bit harder than it should have been. A man with a over-full luggage cart was trying to get the cart into the elevator as we walked up to it. He was pulling it in from the side where the wheels do not steer, which made it impossible to move properly. He was struggling to get it into the elevator far enough to close the door. Unfortunately, the cart was too long and needed to be turned sideways in the elevator so the doors could close. I had fought this battle earlier when we checked in, so I helped him get the cart turned (he would not back it out and turn it around so we could steer it, we just had to manhandle it!)
We finally managed to get him into the elevator with no room for anyone else. The door closed, and about eight of us stood there waiting for the elevator to return. About 10 minutes later, the door opened, and HE WAS STILL THERE! He said he could not get the elevator to move. Wonderful!
We all gave up and walked up three flights of stairs to get to our rooms!
Finally, we are settled in for the night. We have to get going tomorrow morning at about 4AM (I know the sun is not up then!) I have to check in at 5:15AM. Surgery is scheduled to start around 7AM and could go eight hours!
Am I nervous? Strangely, not really. Am I looking forward to any of this. Not only no, but H*** No! But Dr Yu told us we could get 10-20 years of life if this goes well, and he should know. So, we are praying a lot, and trusting a lot, and tomorrow, the Version 5.0 will awaken and we will see what this brings.
Keep your prayers coming folks, we really need them now!
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