Surgery was scheduled for 9:45 am and the hospital wanted us to arrive at 8:30 am on October 13. I was instructed to stop breastfeeding after 5:30 am. I'd packed my stuff the day before (my sleeping bag, a pillow, week's worth of clothing, some books, some crochet stuff, a few toys, some clothes for Luke).

We woke up early and left the house around 7:00 am, which turned out to be a good thing because early rush hour traffic made a 30-minute trip turn into an hour and a half trek. We signed in and waited in the hall for 20 minutes before being led into the pre-surgery room. Bob's dad met us in the hall 10 minutes after we signed in. A gown was put on Luke and he was given some sort of sedative (I can't recall the name of it). 10 minutes later and Luke was acting like a drunken sailor. He was kissing his dad, he was kissing grandpa, he was kissing his own arm, and he was kissing the wall. Everyone and everything had become his best buddy. It was a short time after that that a nurse took Bob and Luke into the O.R. (only one parent allowed). Luke waved bye-bye to us lazily over his father's shoulder. I waved back enthusiastically.

Bob returned and reported that Luke was out and everything had gone smoothly. Now, we had to wait. We were told we could go up and report into the surgical ward on the 3rd floor. We went up and were shown our room (which was still occupied at that time) and informed it would be at least half an hour before it would be ready. We already knew that the surgery was going to take roughly 4 hours so we weren't in any rush. The nurse we had that day turned out to be the neighbor of a parent that I had chatted with online whose daughter had been battling Wilm's and complications of Wilm's. Small world. She was really nice and friendly. She gave us a pager and told us that if we wanted to go somewhere for breakfast, they would page us if there were any problems or they needed to get in touch with us. On our way to the parking lot we ran into Bob's mother and the four of us headed out to get some breakfast.

The rest of the day was spent with us waiting and waiting. Bob went home with instructions that I would call him once Luke had come out of surgery and was ready for us to see him in recovery. The surgeon came up to the room and told me that the surgery had gone well. Luke's right kidney was removed and the tumor was shaved off of the left kidney. He said that at this point, it looked like the tumor on the left was benign and that the tumor on the right seemed self-contained (perhaps not a stage 3 but a stage 2 after all?). Luke's right testicle was pulled down and stitched into the scrotum. His left testicle was still 'stuck' up in his abdomen and would need to be pulled down at a later date.

He spent a couple of hours in the recovery room and we were finally able to go down and be with him. Bob's mom, sister and dad were allowed to come near him just for a few minutes to see him and then they were asked to leave (they went home after that). I sat down beside my wee little angel and stared at all the tubes coming out of his body. He had an IV attached to his VAD, he had an ng tube stuck up his nose, a catheter inserted into his bladder, a pulse ox taped to his big toe, an epidural administering pain killers into his back and a drain inserted into his left side.

He slept for the rest of the first day and I worried that night that he would wake and be in pain. My sleep was restless and I had a strange dream that re-occurred several times that night as well as the next few nights. Every time Luke stirred, I had a dream/vision of the Archangel Raphael descending from the heavens. He had beautiful, large dark green wings (almost black but they shone iridescent green in the light). In his right hand he carried a huge leather bound book. With his left arm, he would scoop it down and lift up Lucas and cradle him. I couldn't see the Angel's face because there was such a bright light shining behind him that I could only see the outline of his head and not the features. Luke would cry in the night and I would envision the Archangel picking him up, every time the Angel held Luke, he would immediately stop crying and fussing.

Luke rested for the better part of 3 days. The surgery and the IV fluids made him swell. His eyes were swollen shut and he had a reaction to the tape that was placed over his eyes during the operation (his eyelids were bright red). His urine output was better than had been expected for the first couple of days and that was encouraging. By the third day, he was more aware and it was becoming increasingly more impossible to keep him in the crib they gave us so an adult bed was moved into the room for Saturday night. The suction on the ng tube was turned off on Saturday. On Sunday, the epidural was taken out and so was the ng tube. He had several bowel movements on Sunday and we were given the go ahead Sunday night to do some light nursing. On Monday, the catheter was taken out and the contents of the drain were sent to the lab to see if we could take that out the next day. His big bandage was taken off and I was able to see the large scar across his belly. The surgeon did a very fine job of carefully stitching Luke up and it looks like it will heal nicely over the years to come.

Since he was nursing and eating well, we got permission to hep lock his IV (detach most of it and only leave a small tube attached in case of emergency). The results of the drain contents came back favorable so the drain was taken out on Tuesday, and he was given his dose of Vincristine. Luke's blood pressure was high so instead of releasing us on Tuesday, he was hooked up to a continuous blood pressure monitor for 24 hours. It was a tiny but expensive machine and we had to carry it around everywhere.

The next morning the collected the machine and looked at all the data. It was decided that Luke would continue to be on one of the blood pressure medicines at home. Fortunately, he would take the Propranolol and NOT the Adalat. I really hated giving him the Adalat because I had to use a pair of pliers and a syringe to withdraw the medicine from the pill, take the needle off the syringe and squirt the medicine into his mouth. It's a shame that the liquid in the pill can't be sold as a liquid on it's own and not in the damn capsule.

Luke was weighed before we left the hospital, he was 8.4 kilograms. He'd lost just over a kilogram since he was first diagnosed. We were able to go home on October 20 with instructions to be back at the clinic on October 26.