Well today was the day. Exactly 3 years to the day that we broke the news to our kids that Diane had a brain tumor, she spent the day once again under the knife exploring a strange growth.
Diane started to complain of significant internal pain about 6 months ago. After much back and forth, and several specialists, we were settled in with a terrific young kidney specialist Dr. Neville. The good doctor pronounced that he was willing to do the surgery required to remove the mass that was about 9 cm in diameter - a softball sized affair.
Is it cancer? "We won't know until we take it out. We don't want to take a sample and deflate or drain it without being able to control that." Seemed reasonable. The plan was to wait for a date when both Dr. N and his preferred assist Dr. Y could make it work. Today was that day.
The day could not come soon enough. The big C hangs in the air as we drive into the hospital today. Her good friend Kristin died 2 years ago, shortly after being diagnosed with kidney cancer - was this that? Time would tell the story. We could only hang on for the ride.
Sarah joined me as we helped Diane settle into her gown and receive her intravenous stent. Only 3 attempts to make it work, better than the last time. (Diane has difficult to locate veins). We left the hospital about 11:30 am, expecting a 90 minute to 3 hour affair per Dr. N's pre-surgery briefing. He would call us once the surgery was complete.
We grabbed some lunch, and then headed back home to wait out the surgery. I have a few things going on at work, so I was able to be distracted for a while, but once 3 hours passed, I could not focus on much. Then 4 hours. Calls to the hospital to check on Diane only told us that she was not in recovery yet. Then 5 hours. I am no Dr, but a best case 90 min surgery is no longer best case 5 hours in methinks. As we approached the 6 hour mark Cam called to say that Diane was out of surgery and into recovery. Say what? "How do you know?" I fairly blurted out. "I called the front desk, put on my best little boy voice, and asked about my Mommy." Privacy policies be dammed, this kid wanted to know what was up with his Mama and no nurse could hold back that information. Good work Cam.
Come see her about 7:30 was the word, 8 hours since we last saw her. We arrived in the room to a rather chipper Diane! What a pleasant surprise. Post brain surgery she was virtually unable to communicate. This one left her in pain, but well colored and able to talk coherently. But what happened? How many kidneys do you have? Everyone with 2 kidneys put up your hand! She did not. Her understanding was that she was left with 1 and about 3/4 of a kidney, and that the mass had not been removed. Pardon the f^&* what? They left it in?? No more morphine for her nurse, she is clearly off her rocker.
Further discussions were fairly pointless as she did not have clear details. Where is Dr. N? An hour later, guess who walked in. Dr. N - he apologized for not reaching out to me, but there was an emergency and he had been taken away to deal with it. No problem, who am I to be pissed at this skilled surgeon. Thanks for taking care of my love. Now what about this "left it in" bullshit? It's true. Turns out old foggy head had it mostly right.
One of the things that caused a long delay in diagnosis and ultimately surgery was that none of the Doctors could not quite figure out what they were looking at on the scans. When Dr. N opened up Diane he found that the mass was in fact adhered to her kidney, but it was simply stuck there, it did not originate there. NO KIDNEY CANCER. That is the good news on the day. He was able to save 100% of the kidney. Awesome. He cleared it from the kidney, cleared it from other areas, but then ran up against the large bowel. Near the colon this sucker, we will call it Kyle, seemed to be adhered and perhaps originating from the bowel. Or not. To remove it would have resulted in a complicated surgery that they were not set up for, plus she had been down for a long time at this point. Kyle has a solid "rind" on him, and while they did rule out that it was the remnants of Diane's twin that she absorbed in utero (I asked, and apparently the teeth would have shown up on a scan) they still do not know what Kyle is. "You see something like this maybe once in 5 or 10 years" says Dr. N. We are dealing with an episode of House it would seem.
So here we are. Not kidney cancer, likely not a cancer (need 2 weeks for results to come back) and certainly not resolved. This short clip clearly articulates my thoughts on the situation with Kyle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_26iZl53YY
Thanks for caring enough to read this. Diane will be back to keep you updated as we watch for Round 2 of WTF is up with Kyle.
God Bless
Dwayne
