Robotic, laproscopic surgery

We are still waiting for the date for the operation. Dr. Amling is extremely booked and lost a week when his mom passed away. Waiting for a call daily and still hoping to have it early enough for George to be home for Christmas...

The doc went over all the reports again in detail and the Hopkins report came in also, and everything points to the operation still.

George has fully recovered from the scraping and is thriving.

One thing that had me worried is his bowels - he used to only have one bowel movement a week and I thought that would be a bad thing with his colon having to be operated on.

So, I put him on Activa yogurt (the fiber version) and Benefiber powder (which you can mix into anything consumable and it goes undetected)since he won't take any noticeable fiber supplement.

And low and behold, he has daily bowel movements now. Never ever had them that often in his life.

He is also drinking ensure and has gained most of the weight he lost after the scraping back.

That's pretty much all I can think of doing for him at the time, he goes and does his chores and gets exercise and all is very normal here.

So it's just a waiting game now... I was going to report back as soon as I know a date.

How is it going now? Hopefully George is doing well. Let us hear! You can always send me a private message as well by clicking on ph under my name. Carla

Well, we don't expect George to feel like a 20 year old again.

As long as he can eventually resume enjoying the outdoors we will be happy. No intense activity needed, just nice strolls... so much to enjoy out here.

He is very frisky now and is gaining weight back and is very active and eats well again. He will be going into the operation in perfect shape.

We will have a call from the doc monday and I will ask about how many of these he has done then. Also will insist he be the only one doing that surgery (given he has the experience).

I think we will be setting a date then - apparently he is done with his due diligence.

My dad had his RC at the age of 80 and has the ileal conduit. He did not have it done robotically and was in the hospital for 8 days, then back in a day after he was released due to a leak and infection.

Dad had no other health issues at the time of the operation but it still took him quite a while (several months) to get back to some semblance of "normal". Even three years later, he still tires easily and doesn't have a lot of energy, but he is 84, after all.

There was a period of time during his recovery when he questioned whether he should have had the surgery or not. I think now he is adjusted to his "new normal". He empties his pouch about every 2 to 3 hours because if it gets very full and heavy, it could pull on the wafer and possibly cause a leak. He also changes his wafer and pouch twice a week to help prevent infection.

It is not too common for people Dad's age and George's age to get this BIG surgery. I hope it works out well for him and that he has a speedy recovery.

The robotic ileal conduit surgery is the easiest to recover from.

As long as the surgeon has been doing these for a while, it is clearly the best. The ileal conduit surgery is the best for robotic as well since there is less work to be done when not installing a new bladder or pouch.

Best of luck to you both!
Mike