Video Transcript: Mesothelioma Surgery - Peritoneal Mesothelioma Patient Has Third Surgery

Well, since ’06 it has been pretty much up and down. The tumors grow, the tumors restrict. I had surgery in Feb. of this year. They were going to try and go in and do another debulking. Well, when they got in there they found that the tumors and its little fingers and weaves had woven themselves into my tissues of my stomach and the linings and everything. So they couldn’t do a debulking... so what he did do for me is he put in a shunt that drains into my kidney’s that allows the fluid that I was carrying around with me.... it would just drain off, kind of like a downspout. Just bury it and stick it off to the ground, and it would drain out by itself. So, that was a relief to me because I did not have to have the ultrasound, guided paracentesis anymore, and that was a blessing. But when I had the surgery again, I got an infection. This one was the worst ever that I had ever had. What happened was that the total incision opened up and just started gaping open. They put in staples from the surgery, but they just opened up and they took little pinchers and pulled the staples out, and as they did that my flesh just opened and they said, "Oh, we have to get her back in to surgery." So, I think it was like 5 days after I had the surgery.... I had to go back into the hospital. I had only been home a day. I had to go back because I was oozing fluid externally. I could sit down, and it just oozed out; it was just oozing. Where is all of this fluid coming from? What is going on? And that is when they told me I had a terrible infection, and they were going to have to go back in and clean it out and cross their fingers and pray a lot and hope for the best because it has spread throughout my abdomen. They were able to fix the infection but the doctor told my sister that it wasn’t going to get better for quite a while; it was going to get worse and I didn’t…I stayed in the hospital for 2 weeks, and I got home during that last big winter storm that we had... and I was sick for another 3 or 4 weeks before I got better. And I couldn’t hardly eat; I couldn’t walk, couldn’t hardly talk. It hurt to breath. So it was depression, sad, everything you could imagine was happening. But, they had to give me all of this medicine in order to combat the infection and also medication for pain. The combination of those two make you pretty delirious, pretty frayed at the ends. So I did a lot of crying and a lot of depression. But I said, "God, if you let me get through this, I promise I won’t ask for anything else... I promise, I promise." And he took me through it. He got me through it, and I want back to the doctor and he said, "You’re doing good; you’re doing great after all of this." I go, "Promise me no more surgeries." He said, "I can’t make you that promise, but the only thing I can do is tell you that this one is now going this way instead of that way."