Final Surgery Update

This is the last blog for the day. We are waiting to hear when we can see Curt which should be within the hour. The final doctor for the day came by after 8:30 to say they were done. He said this was a major surgery involving 4 surgeons. It took about 11 hours. Even though the tumor was larger than they thought, they do feel they have gotten all this cancer. The reconstruction surgeons (Dr. Wax had a "fellow" helping him) said they had to graph some nerves to help replace some of the facial ones they removed. They also had to take a good chunk of stomach muscle to fill in where the tumor was. Besides the gold weight they put in his eyelid, they also shored up the lower lid (I forgot how). They also took a suture (under his skin) to keep his passage open in his nose. So there will be some of those scars on his face too. Because the cancer was so deep, it had gone into the facial nerve that goes through his ear. This required an ear doctor (Dr. McMenimam sp.) to clear out the cancerous part and repair that. I guess there is an exposed muscle behind his ear that they will let heal itself. They did not replace the jaw bone because the part they removed was up near his ear. They rigged a "sling" (under the skin) to help hold up the lip. If this doesn't work after a while, they will probably replace it some other way. They have put a feeding tube through his nose that will stay until he can start to eat soft foods. They think he is in good shape for recovery and were impressed he started to wake up quickly afterwards. I think I will not return until about 9 tomorrow morning. Dr. Gross said that would after the change in shifts. I'm not sure where Curt will be then. He is supposed to be in the trauma ICU tonight.