The update you have all been waiting for:
On Friday Dad, Mom and I headed down to Rochester for Dad's 5:30am check in.  Mom and I were with dad through Pre Op until they took him back to the operating room.  Dad was in very good spirits and of course had us all laughing.  Once dad was wheeled back mom and I headed to the waiting room to settle in for our day of waiting.  It was really nice, we were able to get text updates on the surgery as it went on, nothing too in depth but since it was a long surgery it was nice to get the texts every hour or so saying the patient was doing well.  A little after 1:30pm we got a text that the procedure had finished and they were closing up.  About an hour after that we were called back to meet with the doctor and he filled us in on what happened and how it went.  I say what happened because the plan changed while they were in there.  

The first part of dad's surgery was to look down his esophagus to see how that was and that looked great, next dad they made an incision above dad's belly button to look at the stomach and surrounding areas, here is where things changed.  Dad's stomach also looked great, he also responded amazingly well to his chemo and radiation treatments and the cancer/mass was only where your esophagus and stomach meet, no where else!  The doctor wanted to do what he could to preserve dad's stomach so he removed dad's esophagus and a little part of his upper stomach.  His stomach is now connected to his throat and moved to be up by his collar bone.  You may be asking if both the stomach and esophagus looked great why was anything removed and that is because of the rareness and aggressiveness of the cancer.  The doctor stated that it is one that likes to move outward and upward and if they would have left half the esophagus dad was at a greater risk of hiatal hernia and/or a lifetime of acid reflux and heartburn.  We were so pleased to know that dad did so well with his treatment and that he still has his stomach!  The recovery will still be the same, he will have a feeding tube for 4-6 weeks and start to introduce food after 4 weeks.  

It took dad a while to get up to his room as he was in a lot of pain so they wanted to get that under control before they moved him.  Mom and I were finally able to see him a little after 6:30pm and it was a quick hi you did so good and we will see you on Sunday.  He had already told the nurses to tell us to go home since we had been up since 2:30am that morning.  His exact words when they brought him up to the room were "oh my god, your still here, you've been here all day, I'm sorry. 😀   It sounds like he has done a lot of apologizing.  

Mom, Britt, Jayden and I are headed down there today to spend a couple hours with our favorite guy.

He wanted you all to see him and that he is doing well so he had the nurses take his photo and in true Dirt man fashion when he called my mom yesterday he asked if I left him my iPad so he could watch racing.  😂 

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for all the prayers, thoughts, good vibes, juju, etc. that you sent dad's way.  I know they were a huge part of this outcome and we couldn't be more happy and grateful.

I will keep you updated on his recovery and do a post when he is finally home (which should be sometime this week as they already had him up and moving and out of bed yesterday).

Love,
The Hobbs'