Too many worms

First, thanks for all the sweet comments. And Philocrites, thanks for the shout out in your blog. I was very, very touched. Even printed out it out to show my mama. Not that I can make her understand what a blog is.

Way too many worms to stab today. We had out sitdown with the surgeon and the urologist who will be assisting him.

Their goal is to remove both tumors (one on each kidney), leaving enough kidney to function without dialysis. A combined total of 2/3 - 1 kidney is the goal.

Many, many variables in this. After they remove the first tumor, they'll assess whether to continue on with the other one, or if they need to sew her back up, let her recover for two weeks, then do another surgery. Of course, we'd all prefer it be one surgery, but a) she has a heart problem and b) she's less than 17 lbs.

And tons more variables, which can be summed up as "until they get in there, they just really won't know what's what." They can make assumptions about how the tumors are connected to the kidneys, based on the scans, but they just don't know for sure til they get in there.

I'm at information overload. Too many scenarios of what "might" happen ... they plan on working on the kidneys inside her body, but they might need to detach one, work on it separately, then re-attach it. They might keep an echocardiogram on her all the time, to watch her heart. The surgery will probably be 8 hours, (not including anesthesia time beforehand), but might be more. Might, might, might.

One thing to hold onto ... to repeat over and over and over in my head. The surgeon said that the chance of something happening to her in surgery ... and her not making it ... is small. Not something he's anticipating at all.

Oh my God. I can't believe any of this. At Christmas, my concern was making sure she didn't accidentally ingest any pine needles. And whether two kinds of fudge was enough.

Mostly, I can't believe that tomorrow is my last day with her before surgery.

I've got to stop crying. I'm going to have a hell of a headache. And I need to get sleep. This might be the last night to get any for quite a while. Tomorrow night, I have to stop nursing her probably about midnight. And after surgery, we'll be sitting up in chairs with her in the ICU for several days.

I hope, I hope, I hope.