You will find me at Royal Brompton Hospital in Fulham, Reginald Wilson Ward, Syndey Street, SW3 6NP, 020 7351 8567.
I am now thinking about the operation as being one of DEFCON 1, 2 or 3.
I am hoping surgery will not go beyond DEFCON 1 but have signed consent forms for the surgeon to take me all the way to DEFCON 3 if that is what needs to be done.
I'll find out how surgery went on Thursday night.
DEFCON 1 - Straightforward Thorocotomy with laser pulmonary resection
DEFCON 3 - A procedure Mr Ladas (thoracic surgeon) calls a 'Grunevod', where they cut out ribs where there is contact with the tumour and and replace with poly propylene
DEFCON 2 - is a middle ground where they discover this is a new primary cancer rather than metastasis of the original ACC. This would mean a more aggressive approach to surgery (and perhaps radio or chemo therapy after the op???)
The tumour is right at the top of the lung on the RHS (pretty much where the dot for parietal pleura is on the image below). It's right under the clavicle (collar bone). This makes surgery complex as it is also where there are a lot of the key blood vessels. The scans are inconclusive, it is not clear whether the tumour is just in the lung, has penetrated the pleura, and/or is contact with bone. The surgeon is not sure what to expect, it seems he is unsure whether the 2.2cm tumour will be like an egg yolk or a chunk of bark, so what he does when he's in there is an entirely dynamic situation.
So its fingers crossed, when I come round from surgery the first thing I'll be doing is feeling my neck and shoulders to see if they are the way I left them before the op......
The scans over past five weeks show the tumour hasn't really changed which means it could have been hanging around for ages, and so it really is lucky this has been detected now.
Fingers crossed all will be well. Anything other than DEFCON 1 is disapointing.
