Where do we go from here.

Dear friends,
As I write this I'm sitting with Betsy in Mercy Hospital's ICU. There was some discussion that maybe she could do her initial recovery in an intermediate care unit, but ICU won out. This is not unexpected and is consistent with the last time Bets went through this. Bets is totally zonked out but looks very comfortable.

So what happened today. Betsy's surgery started at just about 8 o'clock this morning and ended about 5 o'clock this afternoon. Not nearly the 16 hour ordeal from the last time but still an awfully long time to be on an operating table.

The focus this time was the cancer in Betsy's bowel and the surgery showed that while the cancer was localized to the bowel it had created an almost total obstruction in one area. Dr. Sardi removed a significant amount 0f tumor, but to do so he had to remove a significant amount of bowel. We knew going into this that a colostomy may be one of the outcomes.

So where do we go from here. Well from here, the ICU, in a day or so Betsy will go back to the regular oncology unit to fully recover. During that time we'll have any number of conversations with her team to discuss Betsy's future.

"The future", those are sweet words. Please keep Betsy in your thoughts and prayers and stay tuned. As we learn more we'll share it.

Tom