Howdy all.
The Mayo Clinic is moving fast on this. Pat has been through several screenings and evaluations regarding her melanoma. On a scale of 1-4, they have graded her cancer as a 5. They did an ekg and stress test and decided that she likely won't die during surgery. They say her Thyroid gland is enlarged and you can see it protruding into her airway so they may take that out, too.
Tomorrow (27th) we go back up to Rochester and they will do a PET scan. Something like an MRI where they inject die and see if it has spread into her lymph nodes. Anything that has the cancer is supposed to light up and they are going to scan her entire body. Lets hope she doesn't light up like a Christmas tree.
What is certain is that they will take about a 4" patch of tissue out around the original site, which will damage the nerve that closes her eye and controls some facial movement, so she will look like she has a palsy or some kind of stroke for a while.There will be a two surgeon team; one for the cancer and the other for facial reconstruction. After the PET scan they will have a road map to work with and will know if they have to take out more than just half of her face.
Surgery is scheduled for the 1st of June and will take about 2-3 hours to do the work and they plan to keep her for 2-3 days. Post-op treatments will be radiation that we can get locally here in IF. We are told that recovery will take a while, so no state democratic convention for her.
The Mayo Clinic is moving fast on this. Pat has been through several screenings and evaluations regarding her melanoma. On a scale of 1-4, they have graded her cancer as a 5. They did an ekg and stress test and decided that she likely won't die during surgery. They say her Thyroid gland is enlarged and you can see it protruding into her airway so they may take that out, too.
Tomorrow (27th) we go back up to Rochester and they will do a PET scan. Something like an MRI where they inject die and see if it has spread into her lymph nodes. Anything that has the cancer is supposed to light up and they are going to scan her entire body. Lets hope she doesn't light up like a Christmas tree.
What is certain is that they will take about a 4" patch of tissue out around the original site, which will damage the nerve that closes her eye and controls some facial movement, so she will look like she has a palsy or some kind of stroke for a while.There will be a two surgeon team; one for the cancer and the other for facial reconstruction. After the PET scan they will have a road map to work with and will know if they have to take out more than just half of her face.
Surgery is scheduled for the 1st of June and will take about 2-3 hours to do the work and they plan to keep her for 2-3 days. Post-op treatments will be radiation that we can get locally here in IF. We are told that recovery will take a while, so no state democratic convention for her.