June 17, 2009, The Big Day, Post 4

It's 2:53 PM and we just met with Dr Barakat, who reported that he was able to remove everything he was responsible for, without difficulty. He feels the effort was very successful, and that he left no residual masses. He went first because they weren't sure what the abdominal area would entail, and they were pretty sure about the liver area, that it could be successfully dealt with.

I asked what the masses looked like, or felt like. He said they were mostly soft fleshy masses that most resembled sarcoma, and there was one hard mass around the ileum and the cecum which could not be detached, so an ileocecal resection and reattachment was done. They sent that part for frozen section analysis. He did not have to create an ostomy (an intestinal tube through the abdominal wall). He removed the omentum, (the fat flap which makes a beer belly) which was laced with the stuff. The mass in the lower pelvis just "came out." He peeled it off the colon, he peeled it off the bladder. The mass was adherent to the peritoneum, so the mass and the peritoneal layer it was adherent to was removed. He said the pelvis is now "empty." He placed a port for potential chemotherapy into the abdominal cavity, which can be removed at any time.

He said "I'm a gynecologist, but Dr Bosl called this one right: I do this type of surgery all the time and although I've never worked on this type of cancer this type of surgery was not unusual for me." And he looked very relieved, as are we.

Now Dr Jarnagin is working. Dr Barakat predicts his job will also be not too difficult.