Whew!

Dr. Grobler worked his magic this afternoon with my bronchioscopy using ultrasound to pull a biopsy from my left hilar node. The early results: Negative. (That's me at right after the procedure but before the drugs wore off. Photo by daughter Aimee.)

I spoke to Dr. Grobler just a few minutes ago and he said he was sure he hit the right spot, and it appeared the tissue retrieved was damaged or irritated by the chemo and radiation treatments I had for more than five weeks. As Drs. Z and Diamond suspected.

So at 5:30 Friday morning I check in at Florida Hospital, and not too long after that I expect I'll be under the knife driven by Dr. Boyer. He's head of the thoracic cancer surgical team and a heart and thoracic surgeon. Dr. Grobler will be on hand soon after the surgery as my pulmonologist and said it's possible my intubated respirator could be out of me as early as several hours post surgery.

One can only hope.

Dr. Z has been kept up to date by Dr. Grobler and he's on board with the surgery. (Update: Dr. Z just called and he is, in fact, on board. He said everything has been done to ensure I'm ready and he thinks this is the best thing to do and waiting won't do anyone any good. Thanks, Doc. You know how I feel about you and this entire team. No matter what happens!)

Meantime, I'm using my feeding tube for the very first time as I type this. What am I infusing? Nothing less than a gallon of some wonderful medicine called GoLytely. I won't go into details, but you can imagine what the going is, and I fear it won't be too lightly.

So to all, I probably won't be able to blog tomorrow. A reminder to check out Catherine's blog at CancerVivorSpouse.blogspot.com. It'll be the place to check out my condition tomorrow evening. If you have her number, call. She'll try to take all the callers. But I presume you can have proxies call so she doesn't spend her night on the phone. If I'm awake and can talk, I'll try to use the phone, too. One never knows. I might even photo blog early in the day before the stuff hits the fan.

If I don't chat with you before the holidays, have a wonderful Christmas, be safe, don't drink and drive, see a doctor if you get severe heartburn and best wishes to you all.

I'll be back! Count on it!