Okay, y’all!

Chris was rolled to the OR just after 8:30 am. and he is now in Dr. Liu’s hands. We fully and completely trust Dr. Liu; the staff here at St. Luke’s has nothing but great things to say about him, his true gift of caring for NET patients, and his attention to detail as a surgeon.

The plan is still the same; debulk his liver (aka remove the largest tumors), remove his gallbladder, remove the original tumor from his intestine, and then fix the wonky intestine resection that was done before he was first diagnosed. My assumption is that if the surgery starts to go too long they will skip the resection fix, but I don’t know that for sure. Also, prior to the surgery Dr. Liu and the anesthesiologist decided to give Chris an epidural (after he was under) to help manage his pain for the next several days.

It will likely be at least 4-5 hours before I see him again but his OR nurse said she can send me some text updates throughout the surgery. She also said Dr. Liu’s surgeries usually run long because he’s so meticulous.

I’m not worried about Chris, because I know he’s in great hands, but I am a bit anxious to see him after the surgery with all the possible tubes and whatnot coming out of him, and because I’m scared about what the next few days, week, and weeks will be like for him. He’s been so incredibly brave since his diagnosis and especially over the last year when his body went haywire on him. We really, really, really hope that removing the largest tumors – which are likely producing the largest amounts of chemicals and hormones – will help him to feel better, and ideally better than he has in the last 15 years.

Don’t expect fancy gifs or pull quotes or anything of the sort from me (although I’m hoping to figure out how to insert a photo… we’ll see how it goes!) but I promise to keep you all as updated as I can.

We feel like the luckiest people in the world, having you all out there thinking about and loving Chris. Thanks for being on this adventure with us ❤️ (Ha! I even got an emoji in here. Chris will be so proud!)