June 27, 2005 (by Greg)

The surgery is over. Alicia is doing great! Groggy, but great!
I'll try and recap the day for everyone, but it's late and it's been a long day, so I may skip pieces that I'll to put in tomorrow's update. Please be patient with me. The day started with us getting to the hospital at 6:30am, only to find out that we should have been there earlier. We were told 6:30am, but apparently, some wires got crossed and Alicia was rushed into pre-op for a 7:00am scheduled start. Jeff and Pat from church showed up and prayed for Alicia before the surgery started. Alicia was taken to surgery around 7:15am. (In case you weren't sure of what was to happen today, Alicia was scheduled for a bilateral mastectomy with a trans-flap (free-flap) reconstruction.)
I got my first update around 10:30am from Dr. Dietz, who came out and told me that the mastectomy portion of the surgery was over and that everything went great! She was able to get two sentinel lymph nodes from the left side that also will be sent away for testing. We should get pathology reports back sometime mid-next week. There is an outside chance that if the DCIS went clear to the edges that Alicia might need radiation on the right side still, but we'll know for sure after the pathology reports come back next week. She also told me that Dr. Brandt had started the trans-flap at the same time she started. Dr. Brandt's portion of the surgery is much longer, because of all of the micro vascular surgery involved. She told me that it would be a good time to go to lunch. I turned in my pager, left a cell phone number in case of emergencies and went to lunch.
Of course, on my way back from lunch (around 11:30am) I got called from the OR. Dr. Brandt wanted to talk with me. I hurried back to the waiting room and get in touch with Dr. Brandt, who came out and told me that Alicia's arteries are a bit different. He was afraid they might have to do the older style trans-flap because her artery might be too small in diameter to properly supply the new tissue. I just told him that he was the expert and he should do what he thought was best for Alicia.
Around 3:00pm, I got another call from the OR. Debbie (the head RN) told me that one breast was complete, they were working on the second one and that the tummy portion was prepared and ready to be closed. She also said that Dr. Brandt determined it was ok to go ahead with the free-flap and everything proceeded as normal.
Alicia's parents and her Uncle Ken & Aunt Marge showed up around 3:30pm and finished the waiting with me. We were the last people in the waiting area...again. (Alicia seems to always get these super-long day procedures)
Dr. Brandt came out about 6:15pm and told us that the surgery was successful and that Alicia was in recovery. She was groggy and would probably be groggy the rest of the night. If all goes well this week should be getting out of the hospital on Friday. She should be walking in a few days, but probably won't be walking very far for about 3-4 weeks. She will be tired for quite a while too. The full recovery is going to take about 3 months. Just in time for the cruise in October...:)
I met Alicia when they brought her to her room around 7:30pm. She was groggy, but able to communicate, drifting in and out of sleep. She is still very drugged up and probably will be for a few days. She does have her morphine drip in case she needs it for the pain though. The nurse came in and used an ultrasound doppler device to listen to the blood flowing through the recently attached arteries/veins. That was pretty cool to hear the blood flowing. Alicia's parents also came up for a quick visit, but didn't want to overwhelm her, so they left quickly. They will come back later in the week for a longer visit.
If you are planning a visit to Alicia in the hospital, it would probably be best if you waited until late Wednesday or Thursday at the earliest.
I'm probably leaving out a whole bunch, but like I said it's late and it's been a long day. Thanks to everyone for their prayers today, it was definitely an encouragement to know so many people were praying for us today.