Hi Everyone-
Rick is scheduled to check into the hospital at 2:00 today, although we have been told to call the hospital before we come to be sure the bed is ready because often there are delays in getting the bed ready....Rick has been living on clear liquids since yesterday a.m. and he is doing amazingly well and is in positive spirits. We met with Sugarbaker yesterday (and the song, "We're off to see the wizard" keeps popping into my head). He reassured Rick that the meso is very localized and he can get it - but he has decided that he needs to take the whole left lung because Rick has mixed type cells - epithelial and sarcoid. He only has a very small number of sarcoid - but Sugarbaker said that those cells are so aggressive and hard to treat that he thinks the outcome is much better when the whole lung is removed. Also, he said that in the past when he tries to save a lung when there are sarcoid cells, the lung tends to have lacerations and ends up becoming infected, requiring a second surgery. Finally, he said that when those nasty sarcoid cells are present, he likes to add radiation to the follow-up treatment and that requires removing the lung. (We think that's what he said about the radiation, but there was so much to process)......All in all, Rick found that news hard to think about. He has been so sure that he would keep his lung based on what Sugarbaker said last time. He is such a resilient person though, that it took about an hour for him to move past it and remember that his goal is to be cancer free - and he will survive quite well without the lung. I would have been a sobbing mess, but he has such an amazing capacity to process, reframe news in a positive way, and then move on. They have done a test that measures how much of each lung you use for air and he only uses the left lung for about 30% of his air anyway and Sugarbaker said that he will feel like he has so much more oxygen almost immediately because the left lung has been sending him unoxygenated blood for some time - which mixes with the blood from the right lung - causing him to be short of breath all the time.

They have kept Rick very busy here with additional tests and there hasn't been a lot of time to wander around Boston, but we did take the green line rail/underground to the waterfront for a great walk and a glass of wine. We are off to the bookstore right now to stock up on junk reading for Rick. Tricia arrives tonight.

Tomorrow is the big day. Rick is first up for surgery at 7 a.m. It should be a 5 to 6 hour surgery and then he will be in intensive care for several days. Please send your best prayers and strongest positive thoughts for Sugarbaker and his team to have their best day ever and for Rick to get through the surgery well and heal quickly.
Sue