Ed’s Journey Continues
For the last few days Ed has been feeling okay. This is the normal flow of these episodes.
Dr. Siegel called this morning and wants to do a mediastinoscopy when Ed starts experiencing the onset of the fever again. He has recommended Dr. Underhill – a cardiothoracic surgeon. After reviewing all of the reports, records and scans he has rejected the idea of this being viral and said it's an unusual case (yep, that's Ed).
I reminded him of the times before when they wanted to do a biopsy, they had to take him off the blood thinner, and by the time it was okay to do the test – the lymph nodes were back to normal. He said after looking at the scans the lymph nodes did shrink, but were not back to normal.
We are definitely making progress in figuring out what has been going on with Ed and are now waiting for an appointment date with Dr. Underhill.
Of course I had to look up what a mediastinoscopy is and here is what I found:
A mediastinoscopy is a surgical procedure performed to examine the mediastinum. The mediastinum is the space behind the breastbone in the middle of the chest that separates the two lungs. It contains lymph nodes, the heart, the trachea, the esophagus and the thymus gland.
The mediastinum can be visualized by the use of an endoscopic instrument called a mediastinoscope. This is a lighted, long, thin flexible tube that can visualize the organs and structures of the mediastinum. It also has the capacity to transmit images onto a TV-like monitor.
The procedure is performed in an operating room under general anesthesia. The surgeon makes a small incision in the neck above the sternum and inserts the mediastinoscope.
I know so many are on this journey with us and even though it's been a long one – we are confident that Dr. Siegel will get us the help we need.
Thank you to everyone for keeping Ed in your prayers and for all of the emails, phone calls and comments in the journal. We feel the love!
