Tuesday at the Heart Hospital

Arrived & met with Dr. McGrath. Leenie extremely frightened and nervous. Unfortunately, a young man who needs a new valve stat will be first. Leenie has had blood work and an EKG and will now rest until she is called for surgery at 2PM. Dr. McGrath says if an adjacent OR opens up while he is closing the young man, they will bring Leenie in and get her medicated & ready.
ISSUES:
'To answer some questions/clear up misunderstandings, Leenie has around 10 ENLARGED lymph nodes. Lymph nodes are the body's sewer system and should not be enlarged. As the doctor said, when you hear the sound of running hooves, think horses, not zebras. So the enlargement tells us that the lymph nodes have been invaded by a disease. When he gets his large samples today, they will do a frozen section and be able to tell us that she has a particular kind of cancer - based on the shape of the cells.
' Then the path lab people will begin their studies involving the reaction of these cells to various stains and media, the end result, hopefully, identifying the source of the cells or the primary site of the cancer.
' Finally, Dr. Cross will take this information and select a chemo drug and protocol that will kill these particular cells beginning Monday.

As for today, Dr. McGrath expects that his surgery will take approximately 2 hrs. and that she will be able to go home this evening. I think the hardest part for her is from now until 2 PM. We can only hope that she will fall asleep in a "quiet room" with a warm blanket & no cares.
Philip will get Tim from the airport and bring him here so he can see Mom when she wakes up.
Till later. . .
Lorane
,