James has gone in to surgery. We had a 6 a.m. arrival for an 8:30-9 a.m. surgery start and they rolled him in to surgery at 9 a.m. The surgeon is estimating 6-8 hours if he doesn't have complications so we may not know anything until late afternoon to early evening.
As previously noted Dr. Vaezi will be performing the full laryngectomy with permanent stoma and voice prosthesis. He'll try to remove the lymph node that's hot if he can reach it but not if it would cause other problems. He's also doing a partial thyroidectomy removing an affected lobe of the thyroid, assuming left lobe as cancer localized to left portion/area of the larynx.
James slept poorly last night. His breathing was troubled again, excessive coughing causing swelling which inhibited the airway. The nursing/anesthesia staff in pre-op gave him a "peace pipe" inhaler/atomizer to try to open up the airway so they wouldn't have to do an awake intubation which is not fun. He was dozing a tiny bit in pre-op while waiting and seemed in ok spirits when they took him away for the surgery. The anesthesiologist was a nice young guy with a positive upbeat demeanor which helps!
Phoebe and Sander were here with us, nice that we could all be in with James while he was being prepped. Sander has gone to work and Phoebe and I are hanging out in the surgical waiting room for the duration. I'll post again as soon as I know anything! xxoo Beth
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