Tales from the Surgery Waiting Room

[Colleens_Husband]

Colleen is getting her port out as I am writing this post. They just wheeled her into the operating room and I am back in the surgery waiting room where I have already put in too many long grinding hours.

To me, getting the port out means that we are done. The oncologist has okayed the port removal because the blood tests showed no cancer markers, the latest mammogram showed no new cancer, and every indication (knock on wood) shows that we are done. To me this is the end of a long and trying journey.

Colleen's port was a double port put in for end of life treatment options. When the surgeon installed it, he thought Colleen had cancer in all 18 removed lymph nodes. She actually had a lymph node infection which was a result of the initial biopsy. The surgeon scared the crap out of me when he talked to me after installing the port. He said Colleen had a 'gravely serious' cancer problem and that I would need to start putting Colleen's affairs in order. It turned out that only three lymph nodes had any signs of cancer, and two of the nodes barely had any cancer.

Because it was a double port, it clogged up twice as much and it was nothing but a big pain in the butt. I am glad it is going to be gone in the next half hour. The surgeon said that they recycle the ports. I told the surgeon that Colleen's port had bad karma and shouldn't be put in anyone else. He laughed at that suggestion and said that unless there is an obvious defect, company policy stated that they have to recycle it.

Colleen's surgery was delayed two hours today because the surgeon had another operation prior to Colleen's go longer than expected. Since the surgeon only does stomach staplings and breast cancer surgery, I am guessing the person in before Colleen was going to have the axial node dissection which found positive lymph nodes and the surgeon is removing the lymph nodes. It is getting pretty late and there is only one other man in the waiting room and from the stack of magazines and empty coffee cups, I can tell that he has been here for a while. I went over and started to talk to him. I asked if his surgeon was Dr. Moiel. He said, 'Yes, how did you know?'

I told him my wife was next in line for surgery and her surgery was held up for two hours, since she was being wheeled into the operating room, that would mean his wife was getting close to being finished.

He asked me, "Why is my wife's surgery taking so long?"

I told him, "She is probably having an axial node dissection and they found cancer in that node so they are removing her lymph nodes."

He asked me why that takes so long. I told him that it only takes a few minutes to tune a car engine, but if you have to do it without opening the hood of the car, it is going to take a bit longer.

I noticed that this poor man was like a raw nerve. He was emotionally spent and worried to death. He asked several dozens of questions, and surprisingly, I actually had most of the answers.

I hope I made things easier for him. He was certainly glad to hear that my wife survived and that there is an end to the ordeal. When you are first starting out, it is hard to see that there will be a positive end to the story.

The surgeon finally came and got me and told me everything went well. I asked him if he was going to recycle the port. He said he wasn't, it was defective. I asked him what the defect was. He said he dropped it and stepped on it then gave me a wink. "You don't want me to put bad karma into another person do you?"

He really made me laugh.

Anyways, I am glad I was part of the HER2 community. It really helped with that poor man waiting too long to learn the fate of his wife. That is the good karma part of all of this.