January 14

Today we visited Dr. Hansen, the liver surgeon, who spent over an hour talking to us about the possibility of Kerry's liver surgery. He explained that the surgery would likely involved removal of the right lobe of his liver as well as part of Kerry's diaphragm which the radiation to his liver tumor "spot welded" to his liver.  It might also involve removal of part of the lung if there is adhesion there.  So all in all, a larger surgery than we were thinking about going in.  It could take between 4 and 12 hours depending on the degree of involvement of the diaphragm and lung. The good news is that he says that liver surgery is much less risky than it used to be because of their improved understanding of the liver anatomy.  Very little blood loss usually occurs.  The other good news is that the detailed CAT scan they did last Friday did not find any tumors in the liver -- other than those shown by the previous scan.

The next step is that the tumor board will review his case again on Wednesday in light of the detailed liver CAT scan.  If they approve, then Kerry has to decide if that's the route he wants to pursue. The surgery could take place as soon as a couple of weeks. Healing could take a couple of months with about a week anticipated in the hospital.