A very long day, Part II

Hello all,

I spoke with Dr. Dirbas about 30 minutes ago. He says that Paola is doing well. The removal portion of the operation is complete. The reconstruction is ongoing and will be for quite a while longer.

Updates on other things:

* Paola's mother and brother are arriving in San Francisco tonight. Matt Lindner will take care of getting them.

* Post-surgery, post-recovery room, Paola will be in a special unit, which is kind of like an intensive care unit. This apparently is standard operating procedure, because they want to keep an eye on people who just had such extensive surgery.

*Both Paola's phone and mine have extremely bad reception in certain areas of the hospital. Please do not be upset if you call and the call is not answered. If you leave a message, I'll try to call you back as soon as I notice there's a new message.

* In this special unit, there will likely be restrictions on number of visitors, visiting hours, etc. As soon as I find out, I will let you know.

* Pre-surgery, Paola was told that she was going to feel bad post-surgery. She may not want visitors right away. Furthermore, because she is on a breathing tube during the operation, she was told that her throat was going to be painful after surgery. This may lead her to not want to talk on the phone right away. I know everyone wants to get in touch with Paola, and as soon as I hear from her or from her doctors that she ready to have visitors or talk on the phone, I promise I'll let you know. Given the cell phone situation, I'll also try to find out if there's a landline she can get calls on (in the special unit, she may not have a room). I'll pass any information I have on as soon as I can, and, if you need more, you can try to reach me on my cell phone or on Paola's. In the meantime, I strongly discourage anyone from trying to visit or call her tonight or tomorrow morning, at very least.

Thanks to everyone who's called today, offering help in so many ways. I really appreciate it and your support for Paola.