"Non"-Surgery day updates

This is Ed. I'll be updating this specific post every time I hear some news regarding Andre's surgery. Thanks for all the positive vibes, thoughts, prayers, and support that you've been sending our way.

3:40 PM -- WE ARE PISSED OFF!!! Andre's oncologist just gave us news that the surgical team does NOT want to operate on him today because his white blood cell (WBC) count is below their threshold. Every specialist on Andre's health care team (hem/onc, infectious disease, pulmonary, etc.) is fine with the procedure because they deal with oncology patients all the time who typically have low blood counts, but they've all been trumped by the folks who will do the actual cutting. The team is changing some of Andre's meds to help bump up his WBC numbers but if the surgery doesn't happen tomorrow, Thursday will be the earliest it can happen this week (if it can even happen this week). It took Andre and I several days to wrap our heads around this surgery, and then they come in today and put us back close to where we've started mentally speaking. It took a lot of self-control for Andre to not shoot the messenger.

2:05 PM -- Still waiting. Andre's nap is occasionally disturbed by warning messages from the overly-sensitive pumps he's attached to ("air-in-line") or by the urge to pee (they've been running fluids in him like crazy). The Social Worker was just in here because we had questions about his durable power of attorney for health care, his advance directive, etc.

11:50 AM -- We're still waiting. His oncology team just dropped by to tell him that the results of the chest CT scan was encouraging. The 41-mm lesion on his lungs' lower left lobe is now down to about 35 mm. Some of the lucencies (bright spots) on the upper lobe of the left lung seems to be smaller too. Nonetheless, the lower left lobe of the lung still has to go. The CT scan of his head showed no signs of fungal infection (this is a very good thing). His oncology team had started switching his medications to the IV-version.

10:40 AM -- We are still in his old room. Andre is napping after taking some Ativan (for nausea) and sucking on a Fentanyl lollipop (for pain). He had a chest CT done yesterday afternoon to help the surgeons decide how much surgery needs to be done; we're still waiting for the results. We haven't seen neither oncology nor surgical teams so we don't have any details yet. It's a waiting game right now which is a bit tough since Andre has been NPO since midnight.