Well, Smack My Ass and Call Me Cthulhu....

First and foremost, here is the completely awesome picture that a deeply cool chick spent TONS of time drawing for me.  It's my inspiration picture, I'm framing it and putting it in my hospital room as a source of inspiration to get better fast - I titled it, "Determination."  Thanks Holly, you rock.

Secondly, had all the pre-op tests and whatnot on Thursday and here is the general overview.

I NAILED the pulmonary function test, function was above average so that's a plus.  Suck it lungs.  Met with both surgeons and actually made one of them laugh.  Well, David did actually.  He asked him if we could keep the pieces they cut out.  There was a slight pause, he laughed and said in a thick accent, "Um, no."  Apparently, they need those pieces for the pathology lab so they can be sure that they grabbed everything.  He did give me an awesome little booklet of "Your New Esophagus" or some equivalent of that.  Here is a diagram of how my new insides will look:

I will have a new little tube-sock stomach basically in my chest.  So, if I ever overeat, I will have a lump in my chest?!?   Well, won't happen, so I guess no sense in worrying about it.  The feeding tube is sexy, isn't it?  David is going to put googly eyes on it just to keep things interesting - nothing like anthropomorphizing something ACTIVELY coming out of your body.   I will have that lovely little ripcord for about 3 weeks after I come home.  I will have to push a "paste", for lack of a better word, through it several times a day and gradually I will mix in more regular oral food and decrease the feeding tube fun time until they just pull it out.  Hope my chute doesn't blow when they do.....

We have to be at the hospital at the glorious hour of 6am.  Surgery begins at 7:30am and will last approximately 7-8 hours.  They will open me in the front and in the side, towards the back.  They take out the upper part of the esophagus and the top part of the stomach.  Then they stitch the damned thing up and push it up into my chest and reattach it to the bottom part of the esophagus.  The day after surgery, they will want me up and walking.  I cannot even believe that.  I'll spend about two days in ICU and then they will move me to a regular room for the rest of my stay.

About 6-7 days after, they will have me swallow a colored liquid and if nothing drains out through the drainage tubes coming out of me like Dr. Octagonapus from Spider Man, then I am good to go and there are no perforations along the reattachment area.   If anything leaks, then we all scream and run around the room flailing our hands around.  Well, actually, they wait another day or two, give it time to heal some more and then they check again.

They'll want me up and walking every day, several times a day, (did I mention all the drainage tubes that will be coming out of me? and the catheter and a lovely tube running down my nose and into my esophagus so my stomach/tube sock doesn't fill up with air and place too much pressure on my newly crocheted esophagus) plus breathing exercises and I'll tell you why....  Working around in there must be very tight and cramped, lots of other big organs are in the way and generally being jerks.  So, when they intubate me, they will only send oxygen into one lung.  As a result, the other lung will naturally deflate and move out of the way so they can get in there and do their bidness.  I am just a little creeped out by this, but what the hell do I know.  So, I get to do breathing exercises to kee me from contracting pneumonia - I am sure that Maggie knows ALL about these.

Diet: Clear Liquid, then Full Liquid, then Soft Foods and then slowly start introducing some regular food a little bit at a time.  I should be able to eat somewhat regularly in about six months and full recovery within a year from surgery.  For quite a while, I will be eating about 8 times a day and literally eating a "bite" at a time.   Good thing is, with a much smaller stomach, as long as I behave, I should be able to stay trim for the rest of my life.  Gotta glean all the good stuff you can.

More soon, love you all.