It's a New Day!

9:30 am - Just got off the phone with Taylor (and Jen).  He sounds happy and in good spirits!  His voice sounds a little deeper - maybe because his vocal cords actually have room now to do what they need to do!  He was waiting for his breakfast to arrive - potatoes and pancakes - soft foods.  It arrived while we were talking and he quickly devoured most of the pancakes before he got a little nauseous. 

Jen has her computer at the hospital with her so she  posted the following on her blog: 

It's 6:40 a.m. and Mr. Taylor is dozing. It has been a long night. But then I hadn't expected any less. It has been a little better than expected. Taylor is doing great! The most amazing thing that I have noticed is that his are dancing the way they used to. He hasn't had much pain.  Dr. Park's resident came in at 6:00 a.m. and checked him out. He said all looks good. When the drain stops putting out blood, we can go home. He said because of the size of what they removed, the cavity tends to fill with blood and they need to keep it drained. He said to hope for Sunday. We can live with that!  Taylor had a really hard time last night with nausea. I am fairly certain it had more to do with his colitis than the anesthesia. Once they got his colitis meds into him. He started turning around.  The first few hours post op were pretty rough, but he seems peaceful and in little pain right now.  As always, he is the perfect patient. Charming all the nurses with his kind disposition and never letting them do anything without saying thank you. His kidneys are working phenomenally. He is peeing like a race horse and not loving that! It does keep him getting out of bed, which is good for him.  I was quite worried that we were going to be in a colitis tailspin as he had uncontrollable diarrhea the night and morning before we checked in. But since surgery, it has been fine. Here's hoping it was only nerves.

7:00 a.m. - Dr. Park just came in. He said things are looking good. Talked about different pain meds if needed, since Lortab has made him nauseous in the past. He said some of the masses he removed were bigger than his fist. Holy Cow! Taylor was interested in seeing what they looked like so he said he would call pathology and see if they would send him a picture of them. Pretty Cool! I really like this doctor.

I asked her all of the questions that everyone's been asking but she didn't know the answers except to numbers 1& 2 below, so I'm sending them to her via email so she can ask the doctor the next time. 

1.  Were any of the masses in his lymph nodes?  Yes, that's what kind of masses these are - lymph node masses.
2.  How long is his incision/scar?  It is pretty long.  It runs from behind his ear to his collar bone.
3.  Were the masses attached to things or just free floating?
4.  Did the masses come out easily?
5.  Are the masses gone from his vocal cords and jugular vein?
6.  What is to be done about the piece that couldn't be removed?  Will it start growing again?  (This will be determined by the pathology results.)

That's about it for the update for now.  Taylor could really use some cheer.  If you'd like to surprise him, the hospital has a special email website that you can use to send him an email and they will deliver it to him.  Click on the link to be taken to the website:  http://intermountainhealthcare.org/hospitals/primarychildrens/forpatients/Pages/EmailaPatient.aspx.  Let's inundate him with special messages of good wishes and cheer!  I'm sure he'd love to hear from every cousin, aunt, uncle, friend, etc. out there!