Health Update

Well it looks like I will be having liver surgery after all though it will likely be November or later. I talked to my doctor today and she confirmed the surgery though I need to first go through a procedure that will do something to the veins coming into my liver so that more of the blood goes to the left "lobe" which should cause the left lobe to grow.

I have a 6.8 cm hemangioma/tumor/growth in the upper part of the right lobe of my liver that has been causing me pain. Because of the location of this growth it is necessary to remove the entire right lobe in order to remove it. Normally the right lobe is 60% of the liver and it is ok to remove it as the remaining 40% will regenerate and the liver will return to its original size (or very close to it). However in my case there is an issue as my left lobe is smaller than normal and removing the right lobe will leave me with a smaller liver which may not be large enough to be safe following the surgery.

So the plan is to do this procedure which should send more blood to the left lobe and cause it to grow larger in the next 4 to 6 weeks. After this time I will be scanned again and if the increase is sufficient then the surgery will be scheduled to remove the right lobe.

I meet with the surgeon on Monday to discuss the procedure and the later surgery. I don't know much about the initial procedure but it sounds like it does not involve any cutting (the words of my doctor) so it isn't called a surgery. It sounds like they come up through the groin to get to the liver to do this. None of it sounds like much fun but the hope is that when it is all done that the pain will be gone.