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In Which Kimberly has Her Surgery
Today felt like a Rebooting the Web of Trust day, where I spent the whole day busy, rushed home to write a journal entry, then finished that as fast as possible so that I could get in some fraction of the hour that I normally spend despazzing in advance of bed.
It was the day of Kimberly's colectomy.
I was awoken around 3.41am, about three hours and forty-one minutes after going to bed, by a BANG-BANG-BANG. I thought it was Kimberly slamming her office door shut because it was sticking, but that didn't feel entirely right to my barely conscious mind because a handyman had gotten most of our doors fitting better a few months ago, as part of our endless work on embettering our house.
And then I heard what sounded like moaning, and I was out of the bed like a shot.
There was much "Are you OK?" shouted through the upstairs bathroom door. Eventually I found out what had happened: Kimberly had fainted in the bathroom, and the three bangs had been her hitting the door, the wall, and the floor. When I'd begun querying her, she'd been lying on the floor, slowly coming back to consciousness as I shouted through the door, wondering why I was waking her up.
So, that was the start of the day, and though we went and laid back down, I didn't really sleep from then on, because my adrenaline was way too spiked. We talked some, and Kimberly wasn't feeling well, and we lazed some, and eventually her alarm went off at 4.30am, and we more properly started the day.
And the rest of the early morning was a continuing trial because Kimberly was constantly woozy and unsteady on her feet. I helped her down the stairs and into the bathtub and kept watch over her and eventually Katherine showed up and we helped her out to the car.
(And thank goodness we'd had the good sense to ask Katherine for a ride, because I can't even imagine getting a potentially fainting Kimberly into a Lyft car.)
Later on, we'd learn that Kimberly's blood pressure was quite low, even for her, 90/55 or something, which was the likely cause, and that was likely caused by her fasting and other surgery prep.
Drink your chicken broth and eat your jello, kids.
Pre-op started not long after 6.00, as scheduled. I remember nurses Andy and Bernie bustling about, and staying with us for a vast amount of the time. There was discussion of meds and what had now become all the usual stuff. The anesthesiologist and Dr. H. eventually showed up, and then at almost exactly 8.30, right on time, the anesthesiologist wheeled Kimberly off into the surgery room and I was directed toward the "family resources room".
This was another nice waiting room. There were couches and chairs and divans. There was a library and a kid's room. There was a "nap pod" and a separate room for doctors to tell loved ones what was going on, which I only saw used once.
For the most part, the doctors just talked to people in the main room, and I knew the script pretty quickly. "XXXX is doing great. The surgery went very well." Again and again.
Some of the early admin this morning told us 1.5 hours for the surgery. Dr. H. said 2 hours when I asked him. So for the first two hours I flitted through my excess of media. Robert Sawyer's Starplex. A Gail Simone Red Sonja comic that I eventually determined I'd read before. Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier. The somewhat derivative zombie-esque DCeased. The Ascension deckbuilder on my Mac.
But I got increasingly antsy and stressed as two hours clicked up to 2.5. I began to worry that something had gone wrong, that they'd found a lot of stuff that they hadn't expected, ... It got increasingly hard to concentrate on my media.
And then at 2 hours 40 minutes or so, I saw Kimberly's box on the status board click over to closing. The procedure was finishing up.
I was still a bit stressed, but then at almost exactly 3 hours, which is to say 11.30am, Dr. H. showed up. I almost jumped, because the status board still said he was closing (and would for some time afterward).
"Kimberly is doing great." He said. "The surgery went very well."
Fortunately, he offered more details. As far as he could see, there was nothing outside of the colon. Even inside the colon, there was only a little bit of tumor left that he saw, wound around the the Ileocecal valve. He'd later tell us that he didn't even think it looked like cancer, or maybe early stage cancer at the worst.
Obviously, obviously, obviously we need to wait for pathology, particularly of the lymph nodes that he took out. Obviously this is all tentative. Dr. H. actually acted like he'd said too much after he said it didn't look like cancer. But after a hard morning, after a hard few months, it was good to have the major surgery turn up what looks like good news, and which lines up with a CEA test that Kimberly had a few days ago, which showed normal levels (which reduces the odds that any cancer is freefloating around).
Of course we've been getting jerked around for ... what two months, three? I don't even know any more, it feels like we've been dealing with this forever.
But, Kimberly's GI doctor seemed to think it was likely cancer, and then he did a colonoscopy and was pretty relieved by what he saw, then we did the interventional colonoscopy that removed most of the tumor and they were certain it was cancer, and then the pathology came back without any clear cancer, and then the doctor who did the interventional colonoscopy doubled down, and now this.
I mean, cancer or not, the hope is that it's out and that's the end of it. But if it's not cancer, or I guess not very cancerous cancer, then the odds of it not being anywhere else are obviously much better.
I had to wait until 1.30 to see Kimberly. And she was in a normal room, not the ICU like expected. Also, high as a kite, but otherwise doing well.
I hung out for a while, then went home (after an unacceptably long wait for AC Transit, which was supposed to be running every 12 minutes and showed up after 30) to get her electronics and stuffed koala bear, which we hadn't wanted there while she was in the ICU. I crashed at home for 30 minutes with Lucy cat laying on top of me, bringing my daytime naps up to an hour (following two fifteen minute naps in the Family Resource Center, about as much as I can manage when around other people like that). And then I biked back to the hospital, was pleased to see that Kimberly was doing an evening walk, dropped everything off, hung out for a while, and went home (via Whole Foods to pick up some food and drink).
And that was my exhausting day of Kimberly's surgery.
And we've got our fingers crossed that this is nearly the end of this crisis. Though there's still a PET scan out there and the results of this pathology before we know for sure.
And the gauntlet continues tomorrow. I need to get out to SFO in the morning for a Global Entry interview, then I'll visit Kimberly again on my way home, after I get some lunch.
It was the day of Kimberly's colectomy.
I was awoken around 3.41am, about three hours and forty-one minutes after going to bed, by a BANG-BANG-BANG. I thought it was Kimberly slamming her office door shut because it was sticking, but that didn't feel entirely right to my barely conscious mind because a handyman had gotten most of our doors fitting better a few months ago, as part of our endless work on embettering our house.
And then I heard what sounded like moaning, and I was out of the bed like a shot.
There was much "Are you OK?" shouted through the upstairs bathroom door. Eventually I found out what had happened: Kimberly had fainted in the bathroom, and the three bangs had been her hitting the door, the wall, and the floor. When I'd begun querying her, she'd been lying on the floor, slowly coming back to consciousness as I shouted through the door, wondering why I was waking her up.
So, that was the start of the day, and though we went and laid back down, I didn't really sleep from then on, because my adrenaline was way too spiked. We talked some, and Kimberly wasn't feeling well, and we lazed some, and eventually her alarm went off at 4.30am, and we more properly started the day.
And the rest of the early morning was a continuing trial because Kimberly was constantly woozy and unsteady on her feet. I helped her down the stairs and into the bathtub and kept watch over her and eventually Katherine showed up and we helped her out to the car.
(And thank goodness we'd had the good sense to ask Katherine for a ride, because I can't even imagine getting a potentially fainting Kimberly into a Lyft car.)
Later on, we'd learn that Kimberly's blood pressure was quite low, even for her, 90/55 or something, which was the likely cause, and that was likely caused by her fasting and other surgery prep.
Drink your chicken broth and eat your jello, kids.
Pre-op started not long after 6.00, as scheduled. I remember nurses Andy and Bernie bustling about, and staying with us for a vast amount of the time. There was discussion of meds and what had now become all the usual stuff. The anesthesiologist and Dr. H. eventually showed up, and then at almost exactly 8.30, right on time, the anesthesiologist wheeled Kimberly off into the surgery room and I was directed toward the "family resources room".
This was another nice waiting room. There were couches and chairs and divans. There was a library and a kid's room. There was a "nap pod" and a separate room for doctors to tell loved ones what was going on, which I only saw used once.
For the most part, the doctors just talked to people in the main room, and I knew the script pretty quickly. "XXXX is doing great. The surgery went very well." Again and again.
Some of the early admin this morning told us 1.5 hours for the surgery. Dr. H. said 2 hours when I asked him. So for the first two hours I flitted through my excess of media. Robert Sawyer's Starplex. A Gail Simone Red Sonja comic that I eventually determined I'd read before. Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier. The somewhat derivative zombie-esque DCeased. The Ascension deckbuilder on my Mac.
But I got increasingly antsy and stressed as two hours clicked up to 2.5. I began to worry that something had gone wrong, that they'd found a lot of stuff that they hadn't expected, ... It got increasingly hard to concentrate on my media.
And then at 2 hours 40 minutes or so, I saw Kimberly's box on the status board click over to closing. The procedure was finishing up.
I was still a bit stressed, but then at almost exactly 3 hours, which is to say 11.30am, Dr. H. showed up. I almost jumped, because the status board still said he was closing (and would for some time afterward).
"Kimberly is doing great." He said. "The surgery went very well."
Fortunately, he offered more details. As far as he could see, there was nothing outside of the colon. Even inside the colon, there was only a little bit of tumor left that he saw, wound around the the Ileocecal valve. He'd later tell us that he didn't even think it looked like cancer, or maybe early stage cancer at the worst.
Obviously, obviously, obviously we need to wait for pathology, particularly of the lymph nodes that he took out. Obviously this is all tentative. Dr. H. actually acted like he'd said too much after he said it didn't look like cancer. But after a hard morning, after a hard few months, it was good to have the major surgery turn up what looks like good news, and which lines up with a CEA test that Kimberly had a few days ago, which showed normal levels (which reduces the odds that any cancer is freefloating around).
Of course we've been getting jerked around for ... what two months, three? I don't even know any more, it feels like we've been dealing with this forever.
But, Kimberly's GI doctor seemed to think it was likely cancer, and then he did a colonoscopy and was pretty relieved by what he saw, then we did the interventional colonoscopy that removed most of the tumor and they were certain it was cancer, and then the pathology came back without any clear cancer, and then the doctor who did the interventional colonoscopy doubled down, and now this.
I mean, cancer or not, the hope is that it's out and that's the end of it. But if it's not cancer, or I guess not very cancerous cancer, then the odds of it not being anywhere else are obviously much better.
I had to wait until 1.30 to see Kimberly. And she was in a normal room, not the ICU like expected. Also, high as a kite, but otherwise doing well.
I hung out for a while, then went home (after an unacceptably long wait for AC Transit, which was supposed to be running every 12 minutes and showed up after 30) to get her electronics and stuffed koala bear, which we hadn't wanted there while she was in the ICU. I crashed at home for 30 minutes with Lucy cat laying on top of me, bringing my daytime naps up to an hour (following two fifteen minute naps in the Family Resource Center, about as much as I can manage when around other people like that). And then I biked back to the hospital, was pleased to see that Kimberly was doing an evening walk, dropped everything off, hung out for a while, and went home (via Whole Foods to pick up some food and drink).
And that was my exhausting day of Kimberly's surgery.
And we've got our fingers crossed that this is nearly the end of this crisis. Though there's still a PET scan out there and the results of this pathology before we know for sure.
And the gauntlet continues tomorrow. I need to get out to SFO in the morning for a Global Entry interview, then I'll visit Kimberly again on my way home, after I get some lunch.