Geoff has only one word to say after this latest surgery.
It’s a lot like the NASCAR t-shirt: Go fast, slow down, turn left, repeat 500 times.
Only for Geoff it is the word used in the title, repeated every 30 to 45 seconds. And, with the same feeling.
Every time.
It makes you want to moan.
Uuuuoooogggghhhh! There he goes again.
Uuuoooggghhh – there we go in sympathy.
The strange thing is that Geoff’s surgeon is about 5 years younger than Geoff. Or at least it seemed that way from my (revered male parent) perspective. Add his blonde hair and southern draw and I figured he had one of his cousins General Lee out in the parking lot somewhere. Or maybe in a garage to run in street races.
But, he was nice when he came into the discussion room to talk with Amy, Debbie & me. Said that he had tried to get a couple of nodes that were suspended in the mesentery and easy to access. He sent them to pathology for a quick check, but they found that the lymph nodes were reactive (responding to the problem in other lymph nodes) rather than sources of the problem themselves, so they went back in and took parts of several nodes that were clearly irregular. So, they should be able to do a good diagnosis this time – results Tuesday or Wednesday.
The procedure was laproscopic as that was less invasive than pulling out Sting and whacking a big gaping smile in his stomach. They made a small incision to put this 3/4 piece of copper pipe into, and then they would work thru this piece of pipe. (Actually, it was probably much nicer than what you would find at Home Depot, and probably stainless steel.) Then they punched a couple of sports needles into his stomach and pumped air in, a la inflating a basketball. This gave them room to manover around. Wish I could do that in some of the engine compartments I’ve been forced to play in. Anyway, with their double slicing and dicing for the original lymph nodes and then digging around for some that were clearly irregular, Geoff is definitely in, um, well, discomfort with Perkoset, and making a grown man cry pain without.
A question that Debbie and I have wondered about, and that the doctor answered before we had even asked him, was why not just remove the bad nodes while he’s there whittling away? Answer: Because then lymph, the fluid pumped around by the lymph nodes, would just leak out all over his abdomen. If the lymph contained cancerous cells then Geoff could then have an abdomen full of lots of little lymph cancer farms, all growing to cause big problems later. So, they take a bit of the bad lymph nodes and sew them up for later treatment.
So, to the hospital about 9 am, then in to surgery at 10 or a little later, then into the post-op recovery room about noon (with the visit from Dr. Cooter), and then into the recovery ward from about 1:30 to 3:30 or so, then home so he could moan in the comfort and privacy of his living room.
Where we all promptly abandoned him to run errands: Amy to pick up Taco Bell for us stalwart and faithful supporters and Wendy’s for a couple of smoothies for the illin one; Debbie and me to pick up groceries so we can entice his appetite back. (Hmmm, let’s see: cottage cheese loaf, leek and potato casserole with mushrooms and Gruyere cheese, Elaine’s herb bread. Excuse me while I go grab a snack.)
Oh! Geoff just said some new words! Repeatable, even! Yeah! Perkoset! Yup, time for the next round that wonderful pain-numbing drug. Maybe, with some help, he can lie down and begin that great recovery exercise: sleep!
Amy has work tomorrow, so Debbie and I will help the ailing get up & walk around, fetch and carrey at his slightest whim, and work on creating some mouthwatering odors. Then when Amy gets home we will finally let him try some of the food.
We plan on leaving Sunday, pending the level of his recovery. If he’s still having difficulty navigating we may hang around until Amy gets home from work on Monday.
And with that, I end my reporting on this chapter of Geoffrey, the Whiner.
His loving Dad.