Hate, hate, hate the Blackberry.

They wheeled LM into the OR at 7:42 this morning. The surgeon came to talk to me at 10:00. He said everything went well. He took out ~8-10" of colon. The suspicious looking spots on her liver that showed up during an x-ray a few days ago didn't look suspicious upon examination during surgery so they opted not to biopsy those. He said the liver looked good, the spleen looked good, the rest of the bowels and intestines looked good.

Her colon was swollen and clearly had been obstructed for some time. There was some evidence that her stool had contacted the appendix so to reduce the risk of infection/appendicitis they removed the appendix while they were in the neigborhood. A colostomy was installed and a hernia was repaired.

She'll have an NG tube down her throat for a day. She also has an oxygen mask because apparently they nicked her lung (pnuemothorax) a couple of days ago when they installed the central feeding line near her neck and don't want her lung to collapse. If it doesn't heal by tomorrow they may put a tube in through her side between a couple of ribs.

They will try to get her up and walking tomorrow and may start her on liquids tomorrow or the next day if everything looks ok. They expect her to stay ~5 days in the hospital. Not sure when the pathology results (for colon and lymph nodes) will be received, hopefully by the end of the week. With the holiday yesterday and the weekend coming, they expect a backlog on Monday but the oncologist said he will try to expedite things.

She has been in quite a bit of pain this afternoon and is giving the PCA machine a real workout, clicking the button every couple of minutes to get her morphine fix (although it only works once every 10 minutes). But it seems to be her back more than the stomach area. They have just given her another injection for pain and she is resting better now.

We thank everyone for the prayers, text messages, calls, and flowers. If I wouldn't have somehow screwed up her blackberry, I would have posted this 6 hours ago. I am at home doing this. ABOUT THE FLOWERS, although we do appreciate them and they are lovely, please do not send anymore now, the room we are in is very small and if we get any more they will be sitting on the floor. I hope that doesn't sound ungrateful.

Well, what else can I say. Why did life decide to start happening so fast? Hey, Michele just got here with some food for the kids. I think I'll go steal some before I go back up to the hospital. Thanks again to EVERYONE. I will try to post some more tomorrow. I know we're not out of the woods by any means yet, but I feel a little better today.