3:00 pm: Jacquie, Dr. Farnell’s nurse just came in to tell us that the surgeons are done with the Whipple Procedure, and they are moving on to closing her up. So the really complicated part is done, and the next phase, that of closing her up, is expected to take about an hour and a half. If that is how long it takes, she should be out of surgery at about 4:30 pm. Then she’ll be in the recovery area for about two hours. So we may see her here in her patient room around 7 pm.
Jacquie said that they are not expecting to have to admit Mom into Intensive Care, and they said that they didn’t have to mess too much with the Superior Mesenteric Vein. Good news, as that was going to increase her chance of the SMV clotting, plus it would have increased surgery time significantly.
Jacquie also had some updates on the report from pathology. They said that when they looked at the outer-most covering of the removed tumor (the margins) under a microscope, they did find some cancer cells.
That means that a) the tumor probably was cancerous despite our fervent hope that it wasn’t cancer at all and b) there may be some microscopic cancer cells that they left behind. Jacquie said that this is usually the case with pancreatic tumor removal, and she said that Dr. Farnell would be able to tell us more.
So mostly really good news today. I will post again when we hear that the surgery is complete. Mom sounds like she’s doing well so far.
I’m so glad that they have been able to get the tumor out!