Surgery then Chemo

I spoke with another Surgeon at Mayo who is either a resident, or working with my Surgeon...I haven't quite figured it out. Anyway, he was in the consultation appointment when I met her and since she was out of the office until Thursday, he had been trying to help me...offered to call my Oncologist to work something out etc. He was pretty animate that Dr. Young-Fadok would not go forward with the surgery only two weeks off of chemo.

So I waited while they fought over me :) One potential solution that we had come up with was to see if they would move the surgery forward if they really weren't going to budge on two weeks...I wasn't getting my hopes up that she would have an opening in her schedule with such short notice. She did have an opening, so this is what they ended up compromising on. My surgery is set (hopefully for good this time!) for next Thursday, October 23rd. Just about 3 weeks out of my last Chemo. I'll go in on Monday for all the pre-op tests.

She'll be starting off laprascopic, and if needed it will move to traditional. We ultimately decided on going this route for the quicker recovery time, and that means I can start chemo up slightly faster if all goes well. About a foot of colon will be removed and they will just reattach to my small intestines. The average length of stay for a colon resection is about 5 days. The only real requirement to be discharged, if I understand it correctly, is breaking wind/having a bowel movement. That means any visitors should be aware in advance that I'm not holding anything in :) So really, what else is new the last three months?!

In other good news, my secondary insurance, who Mayo is a contracted provider with, will be covering more than I originally thought, so our out of pocket is going to be minimal. Hooray! Everything has just been falling into place so nicely, so it makes us think we've made the best decision to have it there. My good friend Rachel, who is a nurse at Mayo, wrote and told me that she usually gets colon resection patients on her floor post Op...I'm keeping my fingers crossed, I think that would be pretty cool :)

Its been a while since I posted a picture. Here is Justin, my juicer.



I have a lot of faith in the good nutritionists of the world, but I will admit I have not followed their advice for me very closely. Back in MN, they advised me to eat as high of fat diet so that I could to put the weight back on I had lost. I've never eatten like that and quite frankly it made me sick drinking, yes drinking, cream. I tried to add a few new higher calorie things to my diet (more ice cream!), but I think continuing our pre-cancer diet has helped me out tremendously. We're by no means perfect, we still eat out occasionally, and 100% of our food is not organic, but we really try to eat a minimal amount of meat and sugar, and lots of veggies etc etc. I've gained back about 1/2 of the weight I lost in the beginning...so I still have a little ways to go, but I feel so much better when I eat this way.

I have to send out a huge thank you to all the people who have joined the team my dad set up for the UNDY 5000, and to those of you who have donated so generously to the cause. So far as I can tell, the team is one of the top 3 fundraisers! You're amazing!! I'm glad that my surgery has been moved up so I'll have a little more time to recover before the event. I'm so excited!!

Hope you all have a great weekend. Thanks for your prayers and support!!