The Long Awaited Surgery

ByMarjie

Michelle finally had surgery to remove that arteriovenous malformation (vascular growth) from her right kidney – 7 years after it was first noted on some routine imaging for a totally unrelated medical issue and almost a year after I was made aware that it existed. It was a slow process, but it was a successful surgery.

We had to report to the hospital by 6:00 am on March 31st. Since we lived a good 45 minutes away from the hospital, we left the house about 5:00 am. Michelle was wheeled into surgery about 8:30.

Around 10:00, Dr. Nahab, the surgeon, called me, saying that the procedure they intended to do could cause Michelle to go into heart failure. (Now that they were in, they could see that.) He recommended they switch to the embolism procedure, which is the procedure I thought they’d planned to do. I gave him the go-ahead right over the phone because Michelle was already under the anesthesia and that tangled mess of blood vessels on her kidney needed to be removed one way or another before it ruptured.

A little after one o’clock, Dr. Nahab said Michelle was out of surgery and that it was successful. He asked we meet him in the conference room where we talked with him before her surgery. At that time, he showed us before and after pictures of the vascular growth. They were able to dissolve the growth without damaging her kidney. It was now just a big spot on her kidney.

However, what started out as an outpatient procedure turned into an overnight hospital stay. Following the surgery, Michelle’s blood count dropped. Not a lot, but enough that it caused concern. In addition, when Michelle woke up, she was in a lot of pain. So they decided to hospitalize her overnight so they could monitor her blood count and get her pain under control.

The hospital released Michelle the next day and for the next few days, she lived on pain pills. Then six days after her surgery, the pain was so severe, I ran her to the Emergency Room. They did a CT scan on the surgical area. The doctor said she was suffering from a renal infarct, which is a common complication of the embolism procedure. That meant an area near her kidney was not getting blood. She said there was nothing they could do about it. From what I understand, it will correct itself in time.

The next day, she seemed fine – a little pain, but nothing like the day before. It’s been two weeks since she’s had the surgery, and she’s now off the pain meds.

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