Pre-Op

Kathie passed her pre-surgery tests with flying colors.

Kathie had an appointment at 9:45 this morning. She took an entourage with her: Bob, Lauren, Lynette and Lynette’s daughters, Sophie and Kaitlyn. Bob and Kathie went into the pre-surgery meeting by themselves while Lauren introduced Lynette and the girls to M.D. Anderson. The girls wanted to see the Tree Sculpture in the Mays building, so Lynette, Lauren, Sophie and Kaitlyn took a shuttle over there – it’s a ¼ mile walkway! The four of them met back up with Bob and Kathie a little before lunch.

Lynette and Lauren tried to go to a caregivers seminar, but it backfired a little when it turned into an impromptu round table discussion when the speaker didn’t show up. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the other caregivers who showed up were women facing even worse circumstances. Lynette and Lauren’s hearts went out to them, but were also reminded once more that things weren’t nearly as bad as some other people were facing.

The first appointment was just so Kathie would know the risks of surgery and Bob and Kathie also got information about post-op. Tonight, Kathie gets the joy of “cleaning out” her system.

The second appointment was to meet with the anesthesiologist and talk about more risks, but also set a baseline by using former experiences Kathie has had with anesthesia. Bob thought we’d find out surgery time then, but we didn’t get it quite hammered out until just recently.

Kathie will check in at noon for surgery. We will all get to be with her until Kathie goes into surgery (so we’ll let you know that exact time), and then they will update us every 2 hours on how surgery is going. They expect it to take around 2-3 hours. She will have around 2 hours in recovery and will then go to the room. Dr. Rodriguez has 4 surgeries tomorrow, of which Kathie is 4th, so it may be late until we hear/know anything and can post it.

Kathie can receive flowers (this will not necessarily hold true once she is receiving chemo) or donations can be made to the American Cancer Society in her name in lieu of that if you’d like (we’ll post info soon about info where exactly to send flowers, cards, well-wishes, whatevers as soon as we have that info ourselves). There’s also the option of just leaving a comment on the blog. Prayers are also more than welcome!!! The total recovery is expected to be 7 days +/- 2 days.

Nothing else really exciting going on here. It’s been a long week. Please no calls tomorrow – we will update the blog as often as we can.