But thanks to a new surgical technique, he's able to visit his beloved spaniel Mugsy's kennel in his Bremerton yard. He's climbed the stairs of their home, reports his wife, Linda, and has shown a good appetite for their daily breakfast of grapefruit, a bagel, banana and a slice of cheese. Keyser recently had a cancerous kidney removed by Dr. James Porter at the University of Washington Medical Center. Porter is an assistant professor of urology in the UW School of Medicine. It normally takes several weeks to recover from a kidney operation.
Carbon dioxide is pumped into the body to give the surgeon room to work.
The surgeon can then remove the kidney in a couple of different ways. If the kidney needs to come out whole for testing, the surgeon can pull it through an incision of 3 to 4 inches, or less. That's because the doctor must be able to get both hands into the patient. Sometimes, the surgeon must remove a rib to get enough space. The laparoscopic technique involves half, or less, of the blood loss of a conventional surgery.