Right iliac and retroperitoneal lymph node dissection for metastatic melanoma
Ok, so here’s the thing….surgery sucks, and it didn’t go as well as planned or anticipated. I should have guessed when I passed out during pre-op, but alas, I did not. I mean, it’s ok…it will be ok, but not as well as planned. You know when the surgeon is disappointed that you should be, too.
[The passing out thing: I went with the epidural for pain...apparently, in the interest of time, the anesthesiology team decided to try to put the epidural in AND do my line in my radial artery at the same time. My heart wasn't crazy about that so I passed right out. I woke up to the group of anesthesiologists surrounding me, bright light above, saying "welcome back!"]Once they verified that I was healthy enough (!) for surgery, things moved ahead. Of course, I remember being wheeled into the operating room and then nothing until they kept telling me to wake up in recovery. (I like to sleep with all of those lovely drugs in me!).
One of my lymph nodes decided to go all rogue and wrap itself around a couple of very important veins/vessels. A specialist was called in to the OR, but he wasn’t crazy about the potential for damage, so it was decided to grab a couple nodes that were in need of removing and close me back up.
The intention now is to go to some sort of medical treatment (drugs) to shrink that jackass node down and maybe go in for it surgically later.
Here’s the thing…I was totally expecting some sort of drugs afterward to make sure we get ALL OF THE CELLS this time. So the only major difference is that I may have to have another surgery (suck!).
Also, the ovary that we thought was cancer-filled and needed to be removed was just fine, so that actually is good news…I got to keep it, plus it doesn’t have any cancer in it…which means the melanoma is currently sticking to the lymph nodes and not jumping into other places. YAY for non-jumping melanoma! hehe
So, just to summarize:
-a couple of lymph nodes were removed during surgery
- a rogue node is loving up on my veins and we have to shrink it before it can be removed
- my ovary is fine! The rogue node was all pretending to be my ovary where in fact, my ovary is fine
- this means that the cyst back in September was just that and a complete coincidence
My incision sucks because it’s from belly button down to c-sect scar…makes it hard to get up! Also, my fabulous surgeon didn’t remove any of my belly fat, so that kind of sucks. I mean really, no bonus program here?!
As you’ve figured out, the first week of healing sucks. It does get better. Please watch for infection. That sucky stuff sneaks up on you! Staph is a killer and no one told us to watch for certain signs….like pressure in the legs, redness around the incisions with no pus or ooze. Goodness.
My husband is 47 with Stage IIIC Melanoma…no primary site. First surgery was in the right groin. Now we’re looking at a retroperitoneal biopsy. SUCK. If he has to have surgery, which it looks like he will, I wonder where his incision will start and stop?