Bailey has a big problem. Richard told her to remove Tori Begler's
abdominal tumor. Seems easy enough. After all, that's one of the things
surgeons are really good at, removing tumors. Only, it's a little more
complicated than that. Tori's tumor is deep down within her abdominal
cavity. So her stomach, intestines, spleen, kidneys and liver are on
top of the tumor and it's impossible to get at it. Meredith, who is
looking at her Anatomy Jane Doll, has an idea. What if you took out all
of the organs one by one and removed the tumor and then put all of the
organs back in the body? The answer is that won't work. By the time you
took the last organ out of the body, the first one you took out would
be dead from lack of blood. However, Meredith's idea inspires the
Chief. What if you left the organs attached to their blood sources and
took all of the abdominal organs out in one big chunk? Seems easy
enough -- on the plastic doll.
While it seems like an obvious solution it isn't. Typically, surgeons
put their hands into the body cavity to remove tumor, so the organs
remain in place. You know how sometimes when you take one of those 3D
puzzles apart, it's hard to put back together again? Well, this is a
living 3D puzzle, which means, the pieces change size as you go. It
also means that they are connected together by an intricate system of
arteries and veins, which supply life giving oxygen rich blood to the
organs. If one of these is disconnected incorrectly, Tori could bleed
out. Conversely, if any of the organs are disconnected from its source
of blood for too long, it will die. To keep everything in tact and in
relation to everything else, they lift all of the organs out at the
same time, sort of like they are removing an engine from under the hood
of a car. Only in this instance, the engine is still connected to the
body by two blood vessels: the aorta and the vena cava and two
digestive organs: the esophagus and the large bowel. This part goes
well, now all they have to do is remove the tumor.
Tumors are little vampires. They create veins and arteries and siphon
off blood for themselves. The bigger the tumor, the more blood supply.
This tumor is lemon sized, which for a tumor, is enormous for a tumor
in this location. Which means they have to figure out what to do with
all of the disconnected blood vessels once they remove the tumor. Since
the tumor itself is surrounded by blood vessels, once the tumor is
removed all of the vessels will have to be repaired. For this, Erica is
using a kind of surgical mesh called gortex.
Meredith's inspiration and Richard's ingenuity combined with Erica
Hahn's surgical skills and Baily's perserverence save Tori. This ground
breaking surgery will draw positive attention to Seattle Grace and
improve their standing in the eyes of their peers. Tori is in good
hands and is well on her way to recovery. In the end, both Anatomy Jane
and Tori have all their organs back where they belong and are expected
to make a full recovery.
