Will's (sailorman) operation for taking out the bladder and building a neobladder took 12 hours. It's the largest operation that it's possible to do on a human body, effecting the most organs. The entire torso is involved. Think of a heart operation – it’s only one or two parts – a knee operation – complex, yes, but again, one or two parts. Doing the RC with neobladder effects the prostate, bladder, intestines, lungs, heart and blood flow. They are all interconnected as the doctors are working and they all play a role. The anesthesiologist told me this after. He didn’t last the whole operation, he had to be relieved.
The doctor said it was going to take 7 hours, but I never believed him. The more variables you have, the more room for change. The reasons for the extra time were several: he’s overweight, he's muscular, his pelvis is deep, there were adhesions (scars) on his intestines from years of undiagnosed gastroenteritis, he needed a blood transfusion, he didn't respond well to the robot they used (and I guess the robot didn't like him), etc.
When they do this operation, your feet are in the air and your head is down. Because they had him up-ended for a long period of time, the IV fluids settled around his head and neck, so they had to leave the breathing tube in even after he came out of anesthesia for a long time. They kept him heavily sedated during this. The tube in your throat is so uncomfortable you can’t stand it unless you are heavily sedated (or out).
The upshot of all this is that it went well. It’s hard, complicated work, but he’s OK and he already managed to use his blackberry (one of the nurses called it a crack-berry) from the ICU to send out email.
I’m posting this here, on a thread, because Will said no one reads the blogs. I wanted all of you considering this surgery to have a heads-up on what it can be like. That’s it for now –
