GREAT NEWS.....

Never thought I would be thrilled with having surgery..but it is the best option, by far!

The spot on my liver is just a cyst and does not need any attention.  We met with the thoracic surgeon late this afternoon...alas, too late to be able to actually schedule the surgery, so a little wait until Monday to book the operating room. 
But it will happen next week!

I can not tell you how much lighter I felt with getting this news.  Of course, now I need to rethink my decision to cancel my Sirius Satellite Radio for my car!  I just may be able to enjoy that a long while yet!

So the drill is.....I will be in the hospital for 3-5 days and then they send me home to recuperate for 4-5 weeks.  He anticipates a 4-5 inch incision is all...and the surgery takes about 3 hours.  They will remove the whole upper right lobe and a few lymph nodes as long as they are in the neighborhood.  There is nothing suspicious about the nodes...it is just routine procedure to remove the ones in the surrounding area.  There will be no after effects at all...no lymphodema.  Once the incision heals and the soreness goes away, I will be able to do anything I used to....like play trombone in  the fabulous jazz band again!

When they have access to the whole tumor, they will send things off to the pathologist to stage it, and if necessary, refer me to an oncologist for follow up.  For you tumor curious folks out there...it appears to be a spindle cell variety.  Haven't taken the time to Google that yet!

I am very drained tonight.  It seems to be months ago that I found out I was harboring a tumor!  So much "not knowing" was really difficult.  I told God yesterday that I felt I have learned the lesson of "not knowing" and was ready for what ever was next ...... and here we are.  The "wild card" is that I need to come off the blood thinner medicine in order to survive the surgery, and there is always the danger of my wonderfully sticky platelets deciding to bond together and cause a problem.  But that stuff is out of my hands.
More trust, and letting go.

I feel so buoyed up by all the expressions of support from you all!  Really!  It certainly helps to say "I can't do this alone.  I need you."  And you folks are there for me (us).
Blessings to you all.

with a ton of graitude.... SueBee