Throat Biopsies and Getting My Port / March 28, 2017

March 28^th and I arrive at Orlando health hospital for my first outpatient surgery. I am scheduled to have several biopsies of my nose, mouth and throat. The ide is for the surgeon to put me under and then use forceps to take small pieces of tissue from several of these areas.  Once he takes these tissue samples he will bring them to pathology to be read.  If cancer is found on any of the samples then we found the cancer.  If cancer is not found on any of the tissue samples, he goes in and takes a second pass at each area.  Hopefully between two sets of sampling we can find the primary source of the cancer. I am also having a port inserted into my chest. 

This port is a mechanical device that goes under the skin on the left side of my chest.  Once it heals up it can be used to draw blood without having to start an IV and can be used to give my the chemotherapy without destroying my veins.  This port has a tube that goes directly into the main vein in my heart, so we have to be careful it is placed properly.

Now I get the easy part.  The operating room nurse comes to get me and puts me to sleep.  During that time Kim, who has her mom and Ryan with her, gets to sit in the waiting room and just…wait.  After it is all over and done with the doctor comes out and collects all three of them.  He takes them into a small consultation room and gives them the bad news.  He made two passes of each area and did not find any of the primary cancer site.  The doctor said that I would be very sore when I wake up because he got aggressive and took out some large pieces of tissue to increase his chances.  On the flip side, the port went in really well.

Now comes the part that I don’t like and Kim hates even more, me trying to come out of anesthesia.  I do not handle anesthesia very well. Every time I get put under my vitals go crazy and it is not a petty picture.  This time was no different.  I was in the first part of recovery.  I am supposed to stay here until I am a little more stable and then I get moved to the step down recovery.

As I was coming out of anesthesia I had trouble breathing and my heart rate was very low, low as in the 30’s.  The recovery nurse assigned a nurse to sit by my bed and tell me to breath every few seconds in an effort to get my breathing stabilized.  To make it worse when they checked my oxygen levels, the saturation rate was not at the 100% rate where it should have been but was at 60%.

It was decided to but me on straight oxygen with 6 liters per minute to get my saturation levels up and try and stabilize me.  The only problem was even the pure oxygen was not getting the saturation levels out of the 60% range.  Kim demanded that I be admitted until I was stable enough to go home, remember we have been through this several times before and she knew what would happen.  The on-call doctor sent her a message stating the procedure was an out patient procedure and did not call for me to be admitted.  Kim politely, well she said she was polite, told the doctor that she might want to evaluate the patient and not the procedure.  This went back and forth a few times. 

After Kim finished arguing, or in her words “discussing” my being admitted with the on-call doctor, I was finally transferred to a room to be admitted for a 23-hour observation.  This allows the anesthesia to leave my body while I am being monitored. It took most of the night but by the time we left the next morning my saturation levels were in the low 90’s. 

All that and still no primary found.  I am looking at this as a blessing now.  Maybe God knew if they found a primary, they would quit looking and just blast that site with radiation.  If there were a second site, it would not have been discovered and would not have been treated.  This means this second site could continue to grow and flourish until it reared its ugly head several months or years later.