Sugery Date

A plan has finally been set into place for Cody's surgery. The Surgery date was originally set for Sept. 23 meaning Cody's 7th round of Chemo would be Sept 2nd in Salt Lake. The surgery date was moved up and has now been set for September 20th. Since the date was moved up they have cancelled Cody's 7th round of chemo. He needs a good couple of weeks between chemo and surgery to give him a chance to get his blood counts up enough to be able to do the surgery. They have to be in Texas on September 12th to start labs, scans, etc. so Cody and his parents are heading to Houston in just a few weeks. Cody's surgery will be about a 12-15 hour surgery, after surgery they will flush his abdominal cavity with HIPEC, Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy. The chemo is heated to about 400 degrees so his body will be packed in ice to keep his body temp down. It is a long hard surgery with a long recovery time. They will be in Texas for 7-9 weeks depending on how quickly Cody recovers. He won't be able to eat for about 3weeks. One of the side effects to the HIPEC is his intestines will quit working. It can take up to 3 weeks for his intestines start working so he will have a feeding tube. The doctors always find hundreds of small tumors once they get inside and start looking around, that's why the surgery takes so long.

Cody is the first patient Dr. Hayes-Jordan has seen that has not had a prior surgery, all of her patients have had a previous surgery done before and the cancer came back, that's why they end up going to her. HIPEC is the answer to really killing all the cancer cells. They may also do stem cell retrieval after surgery while they are there as well. It is going to be a long hard next few months but everyone is positive things will go well. Cody is a strong young man and he will be in the best hands at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Thank you everyone for your continued support and prayers please keep the prayers coming because the hardest part of Cody's battle has yet to begin.