Taz had an appointment with his Dr. today. He has not been eating and we thought for sure his blood count would be too low to continue chemo. His vitals were normal and his red blood count was up to 30%, which is good. But, the ultrasound showed that although the original mass has shrunk way down, there was still some kind of obstruction which was keeping his stomach from emptying and that was why he had stopped eating. Dr. Phillips suggested that he probably felt very bloated and full and so, uncomfortable. Like us when we eat too much before it digests. We talked to the surgeon about performing surgery on Taz to remove the blockage. It was our last resort.
He had surgery this afternoon and it lasted just over an hour. The surgeon called and said that he found scar tissue in his intestine in the area around the lymphoma. It was an intact area that blocked most of the intestinal area. The upper intestine and the stomach were very dilated (bloated) because not much was getting through. He removed 5 cm (about 2") of intestine and believes he got all of the scarring and the cancerous mass. Taz is in recovery at this time (6:27pm) PDT. He will be monitored to insure there is no leakage from where they sutured his intestines together. They want him to get a good night's sleep and they will call us in the morning or earlier, if necessary.
More later.....
Oh, the poor little guy. 'no wonder he wasn't hungry.
ReplyDeleteTazzy's doctor called last night about 10:00pm, which kind of scared us when we saw the caller I.D. But, she said he was doing fine and looked so good that she had to check his chart to see if he'd had the surgery earlier in the day. He was on pain meds of course, so he was feeling okay!
ReplyDelete