Tina's Surgery Over
Topic: 10-Hour Surgery Over
This is Linda, Tina's mom, from the University of Minnesota Medical Center's Fairview Hospital (Inpatient Waiting Room). I write this update after a full day of mixed emotions: from being scared, to being anxious, to being agitated, to being hopeful, to being excited, to being relieved, to being thankful to GOD, and finally to being exhausted, it's been a long day; but none of these compare to the pain and agony that our precious daughter has gone through yesterday and today. I can't wait to see her smiling face and for the chance to tell her how very much I love her. She means the world to me, my husband, brother, and most of all her beautiful daughter MEGAN! I can't say enough about Dr. Sutherland and his staff; they were all super! He was able to save a piece of that mean and nasty old Mr. Pancreas! He discovered that the body and tail of Tina's pancreas was very diseased and hard as a rock, so he removed those pieces. The head of the pancreas, however, appeared to be normal and in tact, so he made the decision to leave the head of the pancreas in, and to harvest what Islets he could out of the body and tail. This would be to Tina's advantage, and help her to be less of a diabetic, if diabetic at all. Her Amylase and Lypase levels were normal. Yeah! Then, came a second part, her colon; it had 3 abscesses, and he had to remove 5 inches of her colon. Dr. Sutherland was very pleased at the amount of Islet cells that they were able to harvest out of the body and tail of the pancreas. It was enough to inject into the portal vein, and as Dr. Dunn said, they will set up shop on top of the liver and go about their merry little ways and do their jobs. I am so relieved that Tina was able to keep part of her pancreas so that she wouldn't end up a total diabetic; Dr. said she will go home on some insulin, but eventually, hopefully will be able to get off of it altogether. Oh, by the way, her liver was fine; there was some talk in Cincinnati that it was not a healthy liver, wrong! The big issue is the pain and getting off the narcotics, it may take up to 8 months to be narcotic free. Dr. sutherland is pretty confident that Tina will keep the head of the pancreas and not have to be operated on again to remove that remaining part; less than a 15% chance that this would happen. Pretty good odds, I would say! I haven't seen Tina yet, she is still in the recovery room, but I'm sure she will be happy at the good news. Now, we just have to let her heal and begin her journey to the road to recovery and getting her life back! Thanks to all of you who prayed for Tina and kept her in your thoughts. GOD heard all of those prayers, and gave our little girl hope for a better and more healthy future!