Unknown Son went under the knife today. And a long day it was.
We got to the hospital by 9:30, and had him on the table by around 11 or so. They completed the first step of the surgery - made a small incision, cut a piece of the mass off, and examined it (by about 1:00 or so).
The good news is that, while it is cancer of some sort, it does NOT appear to be recurrent neuroblastoma. The surgeon said that it seems at first look to be either a mesoblastic nephroma or a sarcoma (we don't know much about these types of cancers, so we'll get back to you with more information later). However, both these possibilities are far less serious than recurrent neuroblastoma, so we take it as good news. We won't know for sure until the full pathologist report comes back, probably on Thursday or Friday.
The next step was to remove the kidney (a "nephrectomy" in medical terms). It took quite a while -- about 7 hours (rather than the expected 4) because of the scar tissue from his previous surgery and radiation. But that's just fine with us - the surgeon wasn't in a rush to get home, so we'd rather he took as long as necessary.
The Little Guy is resting comfortably in the PIC (Pediatric Intensive Care) unit. He'd better be with all the drugs they pumped into him. In fact, since he's got a breathing tube, they'll keep him well sedated until tomorrow morning at the earliest. So, he's sleeping about as soundly as possible, and probably a lot better than his folks.
He's comfortable, and there won't be anything happening until morning. So, since She Who Must Be Obeyed and I will probably have our share of sleep-deprived nights in the near future, we took the option of going home to sleep in our own bed. We'll come back in the morning for the waking of the lad and the removal of the tube.
Unknown Son has lately gotten interested in Greek Mythology ( was a big fan when I was his age, and I think I gave him the bug), so I'm sure I'll be reading some (actually, a lot of) stories from the books on mythology I got from the library yesterday (we figured he'd be here for a while, so we did plan ahead).
Stay tuned - I'll update when we know more.