Sandi Update

This morning Sandi and I had a visit with her cardiac surgeon because last week Sandi started having fevers, chills and some other issues at the major surgical site. He prescribed an antibiotic last Friday and wanted to see her this morning as soon as he could once he got out of surgery.

The good news is that while she does have a skin infection at the surgical site it is a very minor one and should clear up fairly quickly now that she is on antibiotics. She is healing well, in his opinion, and the pain she continues to feel should gradually go away as her ribs go back into place and nerves heal.

She also has some fluid in her right lung at the bottom, but the fluid appears to be diffuse so it is believed not to be the beginnings of pneumonia nor anything to be concerned about. She was sent home with a small portable plastic breathing deal she is supposed to blow into multiple times a day to move a little ball around and he wants her to get back on that and use it. She seriously hates it, but is designed to get her breathing right post surgery and clear the crap out of  her lungs.

Then things went sideways on us. It wasn't unexpected as we both believed this was coming, but it was pretty hard to hear.

The bad news is that he has heard from pathology with a preliminary oral report. The thing in her chest is definitely cancer. There is now no question as it is definitely a lymphoma of some type. It is NOT either one of the two she had before. They have to do further testing this week to type match it so that the cancer doc knows what her treatment options are at this point. We had been told about six wekes ago taht if it was cancer, most likely it would be chemo therapy coupled with radiation this time, but we don't know that for absolute certainty today.

Surgery to attack the thing is now definitely off the table since it is a confirmed cancer. Whether or not they have to go back into her and put a port in (which was not done after all last time though I had thought the entire time she was in ICU she had one) is going to have to be determined later once they figure out which subtype of lymphoma it is this time. That surgery also can't happen until her skin infection clears up as, though it is a minor infection, there is a risk that it could be transferred to the port with deadly consequences.

 So, that is where we are at now....it has been a brutal Monday all around.