Hi,
It's me, Lisa, again. I had the liver resection on May 23. Today is now May 31 & I came home 2 days ago, on the 29th. Here I am sitting at my computer at 1:20 a.m. because I can't sleep! I had my first day of feeling pretty good today- it's amazing what a week can do! For some reason, I feel wired and can't get comfortable enough lying down, so I thought I'd check in on this website.
Anyhow, in a nutshell, the surgery and hospital stay went better than I feared before. The surgeon did, however, discover 3 additional tumors during my surgery which had never shown up on any CT scans. If I had the cyberknife or RFA as I had thought about doing before, these would never have been discovered. My Dr. said they were probably just not dense enough to show up on a CT. All were under a centimeter, but it was the density, not size, that kept them from showing up on any CT scans. So, instead of just removing 2 tumors from my left lobe and one from my right, I had removed 4 tumors in my left lobe (whole left lobe removed) and 2 tumors in my right lobe removed, along with my gallbladder. I still have about 55% of my liver remaining. I now also have a lovely 8-9 inch incision.
The pain during the hospital stay was controlled the first couple of days by an epidural, which worked well. It worked its way out of my back, however, and I did have one night of bad pain before they got the new pain meds right. I came home on the 6th day after surgery, which my surgeon considered to be very good, in that my incision was doing well, vitals were good, and I seemed to be gaining my strength enough to walk slow laps around the two nurses' stations (just one morning of very low blood pressure, but it soon came up again).
I want to comment on my liver surgeon, as well. Dr. Andrew Lowy from Thornton Hospital at UCSD in La Jolla, CA (San Diego)- he is an awesome surgeon, with a wonderful bedside manner. I would definitely recommend him to others. I know UCSD highly sought him out and people come from all over to be treated by him. He practiced before in Cincinatti and also at MD Anderson.