Today we met with the Clinical Director of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Christchurch Public Hospital, Harsh Singh. We talked about the surgery to remove the tumor on my lung. The biggest challenge is that the tumor is now 12mm in size - it has shrunk from 29mm. The problem is that a 12mm "lump" in my lung will be quite hard to find so the plan is to do some more 3D modelling to better define the location of the tumor.
What I had not expected is that he has scheduled the surgery for next Thursday 18th August, much sooner than I had expected. I am very happy with that as the sooner the tumor is out, the less chance of further cancer spreading from it, but is was quite a surprise.
The expectation is that the surgery will be non-invasive laparoscopic surgery, but if there is difficulty finding the tumor, it may require invasive surgery via spread and/or removed ribs. Assuming the non-invasive surgery does the trick, I should be out of hospital within 2-3 days and back at work in about a week. My understanding is that invasive surgery will about double those times.
It looks like the liver tumor will be dealt with in about 4-6 weeks, after my liver has recovered from the chemo. At the moment I am still very fatigued, most likely that is caused by my liver not functioning correctly, and it does feel similar to my recovery from my earlier liver resection.
I am feeling really good about the treatment I am receiving, it seems to be as good as any available anywhere, despite the fact that it is being delivered by the free public hospital system. However I am struggling to keep positive, the surgery is daunting and realistically I only have about a 20% chance of 5 year survival, this is on my mind quite a lot. It would be nice to take a break and get away and enjoy ourselves for a week or so, unfortunately the weather and hospital appointments are conspiring against this. Work is also challenging, but I am well supported by my employer and so work is secondary to my treatment.
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