Laryngoscopy

Our trip to MD Anderson for hubs Laryngoscopy, went well.
We arrived at the hospital in true Brown fashion........45 minutes earlier than we were suppose to be.

Fortunately the surgical team was ready for us to come in to the pre op room. What a happening place today! Rows of beds curtained off on both sides of a long area about 8ft wide for walking with equipment here & there. Doctors, nurses, assistants, orderlies and patients were everywhere, but it all seemed very organized. It looked like the rows of beds and walkway made a U shape with about 20 beds on each side of the U. L's bed was #6, hope that's a lucky number!! Then we saw signs everywhere that read "No Cell Phones" or "Turn off All Cell Phones". Ugh!! That's a bummer, what am I going to do to make the time go by faster? There are no magazines or books, nada. Oh well......

We did have a wonderful team of Doctors and nurses that streamed in to see us. Dr. Zafereo will be doing the scoping, with Dr. Felt assisting, 4 or 5 nurses and 3 anesthesiologists (one of which was a student). All very young and bubbly, oh how nice it would be to have that much energy again!

Preparing for the surgery, everything was going smoothly until the anethisiologist Dr. Carlson (a real cutie) checked the lab reports that had been taken the day before. It showed L's potassium (K) at a high level- 6.5. Normal levels are 3.6 to 5.2. After questioning L about his past K screenings (never high like that!), Dr. C figured that it could be Hemolysis. Sounds pretty scary and serious!! Yikes!!!
Although It's not at all......Love learning new things, I just wish I didn't have to learn about cancer.

Hemolysis explained
Evidently when blood is taken and the plunger is pulled back quickly the red blood cells are broken and is called hemolysis. The concentration of potassium inside red blood cells is much higher than in the serum and so an elevated potassium is usually found in biochemistry tests of hemolysed blood.

Anesthesia folks can't have his potassium levels too high to begin with, because the meds they give during surgery will make K levels go higher, so Dr. Carlson ordered a blood test.......aaannnndddd we wait. An hour later, no one has shown up to get his blood. Guess the lab right across the hall was too far for techs to come from. Jennifer, the student anesthesiologist, wanted to draw the blood, AND was actually excited about it. She took it over to the lab herself and waited for it. Lol. Cute girl!! It wasn't too much longer that the Lab work came back, normal, so away he goes to the OR.

I head to the surgical out-patient waiting room, which is on 2nd floor overlooking an area of beautiful water walls. I hear a piano playing wonderfully soft music somewhere below. The sitting area had cushiony chairs, free Wi-fi and a really nice volunteer sitting at a desk with a computer, phone and a list of patients in surgery. I was to check in with the volunteer to let her know who I was with. The area wasn't sloppy or crowded, but a place of peace, comfort and beauty, to wait for loved ones in surgery....My sis had come by to wait with me for a bit, before her next appointment. Had everything been running on time, she could have stayed with me the whole time, but shortly she had to leave. Please don't get me wrong about the delays, yes they are a pain in the a$$ and I'm complaining a little, BUT, we are in the best hospital that we could possibly be, with very competent doctors and nurses......that makes the waiting worth it. Plus, we were 45 min early to start!!

L's surgery lasted about an hour. Dr. Feldt came to the waiting room to give me an update. I was right in the middle of eating, putting a waffle fry in my mouth when he walked up. Nicely done....I kinda apologized for eating crap food while my husband was in surgery for a biopsy, Dr. F laughed and said not to worry, he had just eaten some candy his self and said I was eating "comfort food". YES!! That's exactly what I was eating!! Now I don't feel so bad.
Surgery went well, they were able to see the marble size tumor on the base of his tongue and get a sample of it.
They also looked at his voice box, found it clear then went farther down his esophagus and found it clear as well. Here it is.......the name of the cancer he has, Oropharyngeal cancer.........pronounced Ora-fa-rin-g-ul or you can just call it tongue cancer.
Hubs has gone to recovery and I would be able to go back where he was in a little while. A volunteer would come get me as soon as he was waking up from his anesthesia.

It was about another 15 or 20 minute wait before an older gentleman came to get me. We went into the same area where we were earlier, just on another side of the U shape. This time the bed # is 26. Hope for luck again! It was a lot quieter on this side, I'm guessing that every patient over here is post op.
For every 3 patients there was a nurse. Quite different from all the other hospitals that I've seen, where you have one nurse for about 20 patients. Anderson is a wonderful place to be, when your life is on the line.

L had just woke up, was a little groggy and very thirsty!! I was able to talk his nurse into letting him have some ice water. They are always concerned that anything on the stomach, so soon after anesthesia, will make him nauseous. He was fine drinking the water. His blood pressure and heart rate were getting back to normal, but he was still on oxygen. We wouldn't be able to go home until he was off of oxygen and his levels were above 93%. It took a little over 2 hours for oxygen to be normal without help. L had to use this breathing device after the surgery for the breathing exercises that will hopefully keep the patient from getting pneumonia. Basically you inhale and then exhale into the tube, keeping inhaling steady to hold this floating object in between these two markers. The cylindrical body shows you the volume measurement of your inhaled air. This exercise had to be done three different times today, each time consist of 10-15 inhaling/exhaling repetitions. After his third time, his oxygen levels stayed at a good percentage and we were ready to go!!