Planning the attack...

We verified that the mass is in Scott's upper rectum which acts like the colon, so we can proceed with surgery. We will be having surgery asap. We should hear back from the dr and the hospital about a date early next week. I would imagine we will be scheduled within the next 2 weeks.




During the surgery, they will need 2 colorectal surgeons and a urologist. Because of the location, of the mass the urologist will need to go in and put stints in his urethra to ensure they do not do any damage to them and put in a catheter. The surgery will take upwards of 4 hours and they are going to try to do it laparoscopicly. This is good because the recovery time is much quicker tha if they have to open him up. If they find that during the surgery, its not working out well, they will go the other route. They will be taking out a whole section of his colon and reattach what's left to his lower rectum and he should be able to resume normal functions within the 5 days in the hospital. They have a new process they have been using that uses pain stints or tubes directly in the area of the colon so it lessens the need for IV pain meds and recovery time tends to be quicker. When he leaves the hospital, he should be able to resume normal activities within reason upon leaving.

The colon area taken out will be sent to pathology and based on that they will know what course of chemo we need. The mass is fairly large and is not even or uniform like predictable cancer cells. It is bumpy and uneven. They say they are abnormal cancer cells which is not a good sign. These types of cancer cells tend to spread and move faster which will mean that they may want to be very very aggressive with chemo. We will be meeting with an oncologist once we receive the pathology report after surgery.

The surgeon is concerned about Scott's blood level so they will make sure that they have plenty of blood for a transfusion. Scotty has a rare blood type, so they are going to have extra on hand.

Next steps, Scotty will go in for some blood tests in preparation for the surgery and we will wait for the surgery to be scheduled. He gave blood today for genetic testing which won't affect the course of action we are headed for, but will help Nate and Hannah in the future.