Surgery

My mom wrote an email to her friends and family which I thought I would copy and paste here, for any who were wondering how things went.

I'm not really sure at this point who I have told what to, so if this is all something you've already heard please understand.  First of all, I just want to say thanks to all of you for your faith and prayers and support in our family's behalf.  We do feel them and appreciate them and each one of you.  
Shad had surgery last Thursday.  It lasted  about 10 hours.  First they did pelvic surgery to try to remove the cancer in his pelvic area.  They made about a 2 inch cut on the underside of his scrotum and removed about 2 baby carrots worth of tissue from his pelvic area.  This surgery took quite a while because they would remove a small amount of tissue and then take it down to the lab where they would test it for cancer, when it came back positive they cut a little bit more and went through the process again.  When they got a sample that was cancer-free they cut a small amount more all around and called it good.  The surgeon feels that they got it all.  They inserted a catheter/drain tube just below his scrotum which was removed on Sunday morning.  He is experiencing more pain from this little hole, than from the surgery cut (which could be likened to an episiotomy).  It is in a place that gets a lot of natural irritation from walking and going to the bathroom.  He walks a little bit like a man who just got off a horse, but it doesn't slow him down much.
The 2nd surgery was on his lung.  It started about 7 hours into the surgery.  They made 3 small incisions to try to go in laproscopically, but his ribs were too close together, so they made a larger (still pretty small incision) and pulled part of his lung out to work on it.  There was a small spot that had lit up on the pet scan, but they could not find any sign of tumor on the lung.  There was a 3 to 5 millimeter (the right size for what was seen on the scan) discoloration on the lung which they cut out and sent to pathology. When the lung is cut into, it collapses, so they inserted a chest tube, which was removed on Saturday.  That was done under local anesthetic, and was traumatic for everyone, but it was painful to have in and he immediately felt better once in was out.
On Sunday morning urology cleared him to come home, but the lung doctor was at a different hospital doing emergency surgery for most of the day, so they just hung out waiting for him to come by and say yeah or nay to leaving.  Gardell and I arrived in San Diego, at the hospital, about 6:00 Sunday night, about the same time Dr. Ignacio finally made an appearance.  He checked Shad out and said he was doing wonderfully.  His comment was, "If you didn't lift his shirt, you wouldn't know this kid had just had surgery - 2 pretty major surgeries.  He is a trooper."  He then asked Shad if he wanted to go home.  Shad said, "tomorrow?" and the doctor said, "How about tonight?"  Hooray!!  The doctor said he would talk to the pediatric ward doctor and tell them to let us go home.
About 7 the peds doctor came in and said the info she received when she came on shift said that urology wanted to see him in the morning.  That wasn't what Jessica and Trevor had been told (they were told that he was good to go and to come back for an appointment a week from Tuesday.)  It took a while to check that out and then to get meds for home and to get ALL THE PAPERWORK done ...  We volunteered to vacate our room about 9:00 because they had new patients coming in and no where to put them and then we just hung out in the main play area until about10:30 when we were finally cleared to go.  Shad was bouncing off the walls by then and I'm sure all the other "sick kids" parents were thrilled when we finally left the premises.
We had a pretty uneventful day yesterday.  Shad has some pain, that is handled with tylenol every 4 hours, and is reluctant to poop (a common problem for him) but other than that he is almost back to his usual self.  He did take a 3 hour nap yesterday, which he usually won't give in to  and his emotions are a little closer to the surface, but over-all he is doing great!  All the reports should be back in about a week and he meets with both surgeons a week from today.  Jessica is calling today to set up an appointment with oncology to find out where they go from here.  The thought is that he will probably do at least one more round of chemo, but we will wait and see what Dr. Pene says.
Once again, thanks for your texts, calls, cards, prayers, love and support.  We definitely couldn't do this without you and without the comfort of the spirit.  Let us know when we can return the favor.  

There you have the basics of how it went.  Maybe I will add some more details about our stay at a later time, but for now this is it.