Thursday, March 19, 2015

Wednesday, February 25th

At 10am the Oncologist came in to see Victoria.  He said they had the US results and they were consistent with the CT scan.  Not really what I wanted to hear.  He said they would do an MRI with both contrasts, oral and IV.  "Has she eaten anything?"  Are you kidding me?  No.  Good.  Yeah, right.   When they had the results the surgeon would compare all three of them and make a decision as to what the best procedure would be.  OK.  (Yeah, I know I'm sounding stupid, but really, I'm dog paddling through this.)    This was not the first time I had been at a hospital with someone else as a patient.  I have been with many relatives in the hospital for extended stays and various tests.  When in the hospital, and the Dr. says they are going to run a test now, that means that hopefully sometime today they can squeeze you in typically about 8 to 10 hours later.  About a half hour later, the nurse came in and explained the procedure to Victoria, and went over the consent forms with me.  I signed the MRI consent form.   Randy was able to leave work and came to the hospital.  We told him they had the US results and told him about the MRI.   At 11:30, a different nurse came in and said she would take her vitals now to get ready to go down for surgery.  No, I corrected her (yes, I was nice)  she's going down for an MRI.  "I'm so sorry!" she said, "I thought it was surgery!"  I told her I though they would do surgery Thursday.  OK, she said, "I'll go check, I can't believe I got that wrong, I'm really sorry."  Randy looked irritated, but kept quiet.  Before she could leave the room, there was another knock on the door.  The oncologist came in and said there's been a change of plans.  The surgeon looked at both tests and wants to go in immediately.  He thinks her ovary may have ruptured and wants to do any needed repair ASAP.  Before I could even think my standard O.K., there was another knock on the door.  They were here to take Victoria down for surgery.  Now?  Yes, now.
Dr. Aaron had mentioned stopping by to see Victoria, I texted him and said we were headed to surgery.  He replied that he would be there in half an hour.  By 12:30pm we were in pre-op.  typical pre-op.  The pre-op nurse came in and asked a bunch of questions.  The surgical nurse came in and asked the same questions.  The Anesthesiologist came in and asked the same questions.  I wanted to go find a white board and write out the answers and just hold it up for the next round.  I didn't have to, Dr. Aaron arrived just before the surgeon, Dr. Greenfeld.  Nice to meet you.  I was so glad Dr. Aaron was there then.  Victoria was doing very well, but he made me feel better, and I think he helped Victoria feel better about what was going on.

The surgeon removed the cyst, took a biopsy of the other ovary, biopsied a small growth he found and removed her appendix.  He sent everything to the lab along with about 500cc of fluid from her abdomen.  He also drained about TWO GALLONS of fluid.  I wanted them to send it to the ER doc at Banner Gateway, but they already discarded it.  Oh well.  He showed us pictures, and said everything looked good.  We would have the pathology report back in a few days, but was confident it would be negative.  But we have to wait for the path report to be sure.

That night they weighed Victoria.  She had lost almost 25 pounds during surgery.  Wow.  She was in a lot of pain, and they said it was mostly from losing so much fluid in such a short time.

She was finally released to go home on Friday.  I could never get her a Gluten Free meal.   I spoke to two people in the kitchen, a rep from food services (finally, on our last day) two shift nurses and the Head Nurse during our stay.  I learned that the kitchen that services patient meals cooks everything, including the GF options, on the same grills and griddles.  I kid you not.  I told them they shouldn't have a Gluten Free Menu if it's not really Gluten Free.


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