December 7th, 2011 (Our own personal D-Day)

Hi everyone,

Well, Bob is fine. We arrived at HUP at 5:25am and Bob was in the pre-op holding area, changed and admitted by 6am. After surgical resident, surgeon and anesthesiologist saw Bob, he got an IV and was taken to OR by 7:15. He had an epideural catheter placed for pain management, then was given general anesthesia, had his bronchoscopy and finally the operation started at 9am. He went into recovery(PACU) at 1133am, and was immediately awake, c/o headache and wanted coffee for his "caffeine withdrawal". Those of you who have taken care of Bob in the past may recall that this is how he comes out of anesthesia, not sleepy like most people, but loud and verbose!! He dropped his blood pressure in PACU, probly from the epideural, so they gave him IV fluids and put him on a neosynephrine drip, which he is still on. He has a chest tube, an arterial line, a foley, O2, the epideural catheter(getting continuous fentanyl w/ a control to give himself extra when he has pain) and 2 IV's. Before I left he told me to put his cane w/in reach in case he had to get up...Yikes!!! I very calmly told him there was no way that was happening and his cane was staying in the closet. Sheesh! I'm glad he's not my pt.!
The surgery went very well. He had his right lower lung removed and the tumor was encapsulated. His lymph node biopsies will take a little longer than usual b/c they have to differentiate between the cancer, the leukemia and the gvhd(changes caused by the bone marrow transplant). Sorry about all the medical jargon, but I like to give our colleagues details.So we won't know about those results til next week. We expect a 3-5 day stay, barring complications. He is in Ravdin Bldg, room 639. And when I left he was a little ticked off b/c the admitting nurse had given him ice chips, which were taken away by the PA when he found out about it. When I told him he has to be NPO in case he would have to go back to the OR, he said "they can put an NG tube in if I have to go back".....UH-HUH, he's got an answer for everything!

I'd also like to tell my sis(in-law) Santa, how much I appreciate her coming down to Penn on such a foul day, to give me support and company. It's much more comforting than waiting on your own. Also thanks to my brother(in-law) Bill for being there this afternoon to take over when Santa and I left.
And a HUGE THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart to Nicole H. the PACU clinical nurse specialist and dtr. of my good friend, Holly S. Nicole treated us like she would have her own family, keeping me informed of Bob's status and making sure we got to see him in Pacu as soon as was possible. She's a sweetie and madethis day much less stressful than I imagined it could be.

On that note I will finish. I just got home at 5:15. The Schulykil was a flippin' mess and I had 2 hours of restless sleep last night. Never did find that recliner either! Hope to get a good night's rest tonight. Thank you for your concern, the comments, e-mails and FB messages. Your prayers are lifting us up as always.

All our love,
Bob and Mo