Back to the Hospital

Cheryl will going into the hospital on Tuesday, May 3rd for the pleurodesis procedure. She will have a CT early that morning and then around noon, Dr. Jones, the thoracic surgeon, will drain the left lung cavity, take biopsies of her pleura and lung and will then put in talc to cause scarring that should stop or slow additional pleural effusions. The Cleveland Clinic has a good explanation of the procedure: http://my.clevelandclinic.org/disorders/pleural_effusion/ts_overview.aspx

After they introduce the schlerosing agent into the lung cavity, Cheryl will have one large bore and one small bore drain. The large drain drain will be removed within the first couple of days and the smaller drain will be removed when fluid output is controlled. Dr. Jones said to expect a two to five day hospital stay to recover and that Cheryl will be in some pain for at least a couple of weeks.

During her hospital stay, Dr. Burke(gynecologic oncologist) will have pelvic and abdominal CT scans performed to determine if there is any recurrent tumors in that region. He is planning to put her back into chemotherapy as soon as she has recovered from the pleurodesis. If the scans show that she has measurable evidence of disease, he would like to enroll her in one of two current clinical trials.

Please be praying that the procedure will go well with no complications and that the biopsies and scans will give the doctors the information that they need to help us continue this fight.