They told us this morning that Rachel was last on the OR schedule (draining was still bad and actually when the surgeon saw it this time), which meant a possibility that she wouldn’t get the surgery today. We heard late morning that it was a definite – cancellation in the schedule so she got in mid-afternoon and was done around 5ish.

There was a tear in the dura around the spinal cord, which they repaired with a graft (from a layer of her fat from somewhere.) They put in another drain and sealed up the incision with dermabond and lots of sutures (that don’t dissolve this time.)

She might be able to go home on Friday, depending on how she’s doing. She’ll go home with the drain in and will come back in a couple weeks to have that and the sutures removed.

The surgeon is concerned that her bones (and the dura around the cord) aren’t healing very well due to the radiation treatments (in addition to her skin not healing.) He said she needs to eat a really healthy diet with a lot of protein, calcium, and vitamin D, and probably should take calcium and vitamin D supplements.