Well! That went very well! I had no idea, really.
After I finished that last blog, I awoke Chris at 5am, made her coffee and took a short nap while she got ready and by 7am we were on our way. She in a hurry, me wanting to take our time. I'm a nervous wreck when anyone else drives. We arrived in under thirty minutes. It usually takes me forty-five.
By 8:30am I was dozing off in the OR bed, waiting, while they began a drip of some kind in my veins. Putting those IV needles in my veins were the only pin-pricks I felt the whole time. At around 9:45, Dr. Jung briefed me on what was going to happen. They planned to go in with a needle through my back to get a bite of the top-most mass, high up in the right lung. The risk? Possible lung deflation, partially, about 40% chance, or total deflation, 5% to 10%. My cobwebs worried me at that point. I signed the form.
They wheeled me into the CAT Scan/Surgery room around 10am and rolled me onto my stomach on the CAT Scan table.
"Safety check," someone said, and they read off a list.
"Charles," someone said to me. "What's you're understanding of what we're going to do?"
"You're going to take a biopsy from one of the two masses in my right lung..."
"The largest," Dr. Jung said.
"...in that case," I continued, "you're going to take it from the top-most mass. I'm going to assist you by breathing and holding my breath so you can get a stable scan and hold the mass stable while you extract the biopsy. No general anesthetics are involved, just a sedative like solution to calm me. You're using a local anesthetic at the puncture site."
"Perfect," Dr. Jung said, "We're ready..."
I remember breathing, exhaling and holding for two test CAT runs and one real scan. He marked my back with a marker, just under my scapula. The last thing I saw was vitals: BP 112/73, pulse 54. I dozed off. I woke up about fifteen minutes later and it was over. I felt nothing.
Abdullah, from Fiji, wheeled me back to recovery and I dozed on and off until about 12pm. He then wheeled me for a lung X-ray to check for air leaks; there were none. I impatiently waited another hour and a half, to 1:30pm, for discharge. I finally signed all the warnings, dos and don'ts, and other regimen and rules I was supposed to follow and told them I was going to get a really nice big juicy hamburger in about fifteen minutes. They suggested soup. Awk!
We went to a Vietnamese restaurant across the street and I ate a large bowl of Won Ton soup with Egg Noddles with a touch of Vietnamese chili sauce to spice it up.
I don't usually drink coffee during the day, but we made a pot when we got home and I ate two pieces of M's best Baklava, dunked and ate three Biscotti (w/fruit and nuts) cookies and drank two cups of Chris' special unauthorized grind coffee. Best stuff I've had all day. Damn! I'm really not much for regimen and rules.
After it was all done, I'm still perplexed about all of the fasting fuss. I could have eaten a horse and not had one iota effect on the procedure.
Well, there was one little thing. Dr. Jung said that I seemed to have had an over abundance of gas in surgery. I'm glad there were no sparks in that room; it would have exploded.
Back on the pill. Pam is on her way. Maybe we'll reheat the pizza... I'm still hungry.
Dave
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