jessica
01-23-2005, 07:33 PM
Hello Everyone,
Just wanted to share some first-hand info about RFA.I had the procedure on Friday morning & was home by 5pm that evening. I feel pretty well, now that the general anesth. has cleared my head, but left my stomach still a little sluggish.
I'm really pleasantly surprised how well I feel! I had a little soreness, very little soreness in my upper abdominals-like I'd done an ab workout-yesterday, but mostly just itchy from the tape & the healing of the incision (tiny,5mm).Liver feels great-it's hard to believe they zapped that thing for 14 mins & heated it up to 100 deg, then burned back the path to cauterize the blood vessels as they exited the liver.
I'll have a follow up CT/PET in 4 weeks; until then, we won't know the true success of the procedure, though the doc feels confident. Because this spot was located between 2 major vessels in my liver, the biggest concern is that they weren't able to get the temp of the probe high enough to sufficiently ablate the spot-the goal is ~115 deg-they were only able to heat up to 100 deg in my case.I'm keeping my fingers crossed...
All in all a good experience, hopefully 4 weeks from now NED will be firmly in my grasp & I plan on holding on longer than year!
Keep the faith!
Jessica
Just wanted to share some first-hand info about RFA.I had the procedure on Friday morning & was home by 5pm that evening. I feel pretty well, now that the general anesth. has cleared my head, but left my stomach still a little sluggish.
I'm really pleasantly surprised how well I feel! I had a little soreness, very little soreness in my upper abdominals-like I'd done an ab workout-yesterday, but mostly just itchy from the tape & the healing of the incision (tiny,5mm).Liver feels great-it's hard to believe they zapped that thing for 14 mins & heated it up to 100 deg, then burned back the path to cauterize the blood vessels as they exited the liver.
I'll have a follow up CT/PET in 4 weeks; until then, we won't know the true success of the procedure, though the doc feels confident. Because this spot was located between 2 major vessels in my liver, the biggest concern is that they weren't able to get the temp of the probe high enough to sufficiently ablate the spot-the goal is ~115 deg-they were only able to heat up to 100 deg in my case.I'm keeping my fingers crossed...
All in all a good experience, hopefully 4 weeks from now NED will be firmly in my grasp & I plan on holding on longer than year!
Keep the faith!
Jessica