Improving Today

MJ resting on the porch today

Mary Jo is recovering at home and doing very well after her most recent surgery performed on Friday at Abbott Virginia Piper Cancer Center. The prophylactic surgical procedure that Dr Casey performed on Mary Jo is called a “robotically assisted total laparoscopic hysterectomy bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy” or the DaVinci Hysterectomy. Dr Casey briefed me after the procedure. I was amazed to hear that with this high tech new procedure, the actual blood loss as a result of the surgical procedure was only one tablespoon in volume. Mary Jo has six, not five, rather small one inch long incisions on her abdomen, much like the drawing below.

Mary Jo was able to be released from the hospital on Saturday afternoon and was even able to take a short walk around the block on Saturday evening. She was instructed to try to take short walks to help her body remove and process the carbon dioxide gas that is used in the surgical procedure to inflate the abdominal cavity.

MJ checking out on Saturday afternoon

Many patients complain of severe abdominal, joint and shoulder pains after this procedure which are usually associated with or the direct result of these trapped gasses built up in the body. With each day that goes by, Mary Jo is feeling better and stronger. She has not experienced the expected shoulder pain and the bloating and gas pains are starting to subside today. She is instructed not to lift anything over 20lbs. for a least two weeks for obvious reasons. Good news, Mary Jo received the final pathology report today that the “sections” of the removed tissues all tested negative for cancer cells. Mary Jo has an appointment to see Dr Casey’s nurse practitioner on Monday to have the stitches removed and another follow up visit with her surgeon, Dr Casey in eight weeks.

Teresa (Mary Jo's sister) Kuehne

We had a bit of a scare with Mary Jo’s sister Teresa today. She had a prophylactic double mastectomy performed last Wednesday at Abbott Virginia Piper Cancer Center and had been doing well recovering at home. Her husband John sent me a message today around noon today that Teresa appears to have a broken blood vessel in her right breast. He said that it had been bothering her for a couple of days and the fluid that was draining in one of the two JP valves was darker (like old blood) than the other one. “Last night it was really bothering her and her breast was really swollen and was draining a lot”. They called the on call Doctor at 2:30am this morning and he told them to just watch it. John said they didn’t sleep much after that. He called Teresa’s plastic surgeon that performed the initial reconstruction at 8:30 morning and the doctor said to come in. After an examination, her doctor said he needed to go back in and “evacuate” the blood and see if he could find the broken blood vessel. The doctor explained that it’s a very simple procedure that should only take about and hour. The Doctor said this should not cause a significant setback in Teresa’s healing however he wanted to get rid of any old blood to reduce the possibility of internal scarring. Teresa’s surgery was scheduled for 1:30 central time and concluded at 2:40pm. Teresa is now recovering in a private room and is expected to be released tomorrow. Her doctor wants to keep her overnight just to be sure the bleeding has completely stopped.

John Kuehne