Michael's Journal
Pre-Surgery

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Saturday, 12 February, 2005

Today we're getting ready for our "vacation" to Louisville. This is where Michael will be having surgery to remove a small lesion in his right lung. Lesion in his lung? How does a long-time non-smoker get a lesion in his lung? How did we even know it was there?

Well, this is a pretty interesting story. Michael went to his family doc for a routine physical. His liver enzymes were up a bit, so they took him off his Lipitor, to get them back to normal. They decided that when he went back on a cholesterol drug, they would try Crestor, but first, they would consult with a cardiologist.

The cardiologist wanted to first see if there was calcium in his coronary arteries. This is an indicator for heart disease. So they did a heart CT scan. His CA are fine, but the radiologist, Dr. Philip Doering at SIRA, found a little thing in his lung.

Next step was to do a real CT scan of his chest. Sure enough, there it was -- a little gray thing that looks to me like the Mandlebrot set fractal -- nestled into his right lower lobe, back near his spine.

After numerous consultations with various doctors, family members, and family members who are also doctors, Michael decided to have this thing taken out. We'll be at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, KY. His doctor is Dr. Bowling, a cardio-thoracic specialist with the University of Louisville.

Michael's asked me (Janee) to set up this page with pictures and a journal of his progress, so here we are!

And a few more shots:

Today is rainy, so we went walking in the mall. Janee baked a cherry pie for George & Angie (everyone's favorite!) We'll leave in a bit to drive down to Louisville!

Later

We made it to George & Angie's where we're going to be staying for a few days. At the right, I'm doing some financial work. You can see Janee's computer to my left.

Today we had to get my preadmission testing & teaching. What this involved was getting to the hospital at 7:30, to begin with. Then I went in for my pulmonary function test, where I got to demonstrate for Carolyn that I have good lungs! Janee took pics of me in the waiting room, and then getting this test done.

Then they did my routine labs and arterial blood gases. This part was decidedly not fun. On the first try for my radial artery in my L wrist, they got the radial nerve instead! This made my thumb twitch uncontrollably and .... not in a good way.

The 2nd try in my R wrist was a success.

Then Mary Jo told us all about the surgery, what was to happen, and what we were to do ahead of time and afterward. She answered all our questions and told us where to go for the surgery in the morning tomorrow.

We were all finished at the hospital by 11:30, so we went to the mall for lunch and a pleasant 45-minute walk.

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