Surgery Update (from Pete)

Well, it was deja vu all over again as we had the "team dinner" last night (me, Julie, her parents and my parents), and then set in motion the same plan as we had 7 months ago for Julie's first surgery.

We woke up at the crack of dawn this morning and headed with Julie's parents to UCSF for surgery day, while my parents looked after Shadow and the kids. Today also happened to be the front end of what might well be the "storm of the year" here in San Fran -- 60 mph winds, heavy rain, flooding, closed bridges, power outages and assorted storm-related issues.

Despite the storm raging outside, everything was smooth and "as planned" inside the hospital. After a bunch of waiting around and about 45 minutes of pre-op (which basically consists of a parade of nurses and doctors coming in to ask the same questions over and over again), they whisked Julie away for surgery around 8:00 AM. Dr Julio Garcia-Aguilar -- our trusted surgical guru -- was at the helm, and, as he always does, gave us great confidence that we were in truly expert hands (literally!).

About two hours later, the doctors came out and reported that everything went very smoothly, and that "Colon 2.0" (though I am indeed a tech geek, it was actually Julie who came up with this term!) was in place. The surgeons did a thorough exam of the area on which they had previously operated, and everything looked exactly as they'd hoped/expected. So, the uneventful surgery -- combined with the clean CT/PET scans earlier this week - is the exact outcome that we'd hoped for and expected. Phew.

Julie then spent a couple more hours in post-op recovery, and is now resting comfortably back up on the 5th floor, just a few doors down from where we spent the week after her first surgery back in June. She is still heavily drugged up and groggy, but her preliminary assessment is that she is in a lot less pain than she was right after the previous surgery....so that's good news. Nonetheless, the doctors estimate that she'll be in the hospital 4-6 days as she recovers.

Since I've hijacked Julie's account for the moment, I just wanted to say thanks again to all the many friends and family who have sent their prayers and well-wishes over the last few days leading up to the surgery. And, as Julie has mentioned many times before, we can't possibly thank our respective parents enough for all their help and support throughout this whole journey. We simply could not have come through it all the way we have without them.

Summit is in sight....climbing on!