Surgery Day

Today, my dad had his surgery. He had to be at the hospital this morning at 5:30, and they began his surgery at 7:00 A.M. The surgery lasted 10 1/2 hours long. The doctors didn't expect it to take so long, but as they were looking, they found that the tumor was much larger than they originally thought. It was about the size of a large grapefruit. The doctors removed the tumor as well as 3 feet of his small intestine, his whole gall bladder, and 1/3 of his pancreas. Originally, the doctors were scheduled to also remove two tumors in my dad's liver, but as the doctors got a closer look inside, they found much more. When the doctor came to tell my mom, his exact words were "We will not be removing the two tumors in his liver. There is no point in removing the two, when we would be leaving behind one hundred more." Apparently my dad, under a closer look, has several more tumors in his liver than expected. They will be sent to the lab for a biopsy and most likely start chemo ASAP to reduce the size and amount of tumors in his liver. Other than that, the surgery went well and he is doing fine. He isn't quite coherent yet, but hopefully by tomorrow he will be doing much better.