Alan Surgery and Hospital Stay Update

Hello, everyone! I am a close friend of Melissa's, and she has asked me to keep their blog updated while she's not able to do so. (My name is Paula.) I will do my best to add information as quickly as I talk with Melissa. If you are following their blog to keep up with their family and with Alan's illness, I know you are just as anxious as I am to know how Alan's doing. Please do not hesitate to add comments and/or questions...I will pass those on to Melissa while she's still unavailable, and she'll be able to read them for herself when she's back online.

Alan underwent his surgery on Monday morning at 10am at Baptist Medical Center in Little Rock. The surgery took approximately 3 1/2 hours. The surgeons did remove the tumor, the kidney, the entire spleen, and a lymph node close to the kidney. Alan did receive blood during the surgery. Afterwards, the doctors told Melissa that the surgery went extremely well.

As of yesterday, Alan had been in ICU since his surgery. He had received a total of 4 units of blood (I believe 3 of those were during surgery). His breathing tubes had all been removed on Tuesday night and the nurses had already had him sitting up in a chair. He is still pretty groggy and a bit out-of-it, but doing well. Melissa was hoping that Alan would be moved out into a room later in the day on Wednesday. I will be talking with her in a little bit this for the latest updates and hopefully will have a private room number for you all. As far as Melissa knew, the oncologists had still not been by to see Alan. She's hoping that will happen once he's moved into a room, alert, and she's with him.

The best news of all so far:
The biopsy of Alan's lymph node came back NEGATIVE!!!!!!!!!!

All in all, Alan seems to be doing very well. Melissa sounded much better yesterday than she has in over a week. Please continue to remember them in your prayers. Until the next update,

Paula