Yesterday was another good day, with only minor discomfort for Lisa, and almost no problem being able to eat. It appears that the esophagitis from the radiation effects has pretty much healed.

Lisa's mom is coming here from Kentucky today to be with us during tomorrow's surgery and to help afterwards.  We have to be at the hospital at 8am on Thursday morning, though the surgery isn't until around 11:00.  We will probably be able to bring Lisa home by around 1:30.

The doctor's goal of this surgery is to determine if resection (partial or full removal) of the right lung is possible as a curative procedure on some other nearby date.  The doctor will do a bronchoscopy primarily to examine the  position of the tumor in the airways to make sure it is still not immediately adjacent to the main bronchus so that it can be cut away with the lung, and the airway can be properly "capped off". The green in this picture shows the area where the tumor had invaded the airways as seen during the last bronchoscopy (and they lasered out as much as possible at the time).  The yellow roughly shows the area where the tumor had grown prior to radiation, including the non-airway tissue of the lung, and through the lung into the area outside of it into the mediastinum (space between the lungs).  The way we understand it, if there is any tumor (live or dead) that has encroached into the red dot area at the major branch inside the airway, resection is no longer an option because they wouldn't be able to assure a proper "seal" afterwards.

While in there, the doctor may do some lasering again if needed to accelerate the clearing of Lisa's airways of what we now presume is dead tumor. Lisa has actually been coughing some up at times.

The other procedure being done is a mediastinoscopy with biopsies.  An incision is made just above the center of the collarbone area and a scope is inserted into the mediastinum to look around and to take samples of lymph nodes and anything else that might look suspicious.  Samples are sent to the lab to determine if there are any live cancer cells in the samples.   If live cancer is found in this area, resection is again no longer an option.  We should have the lab results by close of business on Friday, though it's possible that we'll have to wait over the weekend until Monday.

Please pray that all goes well with the surgery and Lisa's recovery afterwards, and that the cancer is all dead.