Tuesday 23rd December 2008

Ok, scary day!

I'm feeling ok - ulcers haven't flared up and are actually probably better than yesterday although I am conscious of something there. Been a bit wobbly at points today - it feels as though my blood pressure has been going up and down a bit (felt a bit unsteady in M&S during food shopping!). Back home now and feeling more stable, so no problems.

The big thing today has been the meeting with the surgeon. A couple of surprises which I will go into, but mostly as expected, but actually having a real face-to-face conversation about it brought it home a bit how real and scary this is going to be ...

He confirmed that there is this area of uncertainty due to the unquantifiable nodule, but that they are assuming they can go ahead (we'll know for sure on the 14th Jan). He told me that he has been doing this particular operation for 7 years and the team of three of them do about 40 of these a year between them. He doesn't see any issues with me, particularly given my age, and expects it to be straightforward, although he did remind me that this is one of the most major surgeries that you can have.

Risk-wise, there is an overall 3% mortality rate, but given my age and fitness he reckoned this would be more like 0.2% - good odds, but obviously not 100% of course - no surprises there.

The main shock was that they plan to remove the whole gullet, not just the bottom section as I had been led to believe. This will mean an incision in the neck (fairly small - 2 or 3 inches I think). They then pull the stomach all the way up to meet the gullet near the neck, so I end up with a long thin stomach instead of a saggy bag.

The other shock was the size of the lower incision. This will go from almost under my arm (probably on the left side, but this will depend on the scan) right across my stomach and almost to my belly button - I figure that's some 12 inches or more, which is more significant than I expected and is very scary!

So much for thinking that I'd have nice cool scars to impress the girls, it now seems as though I'm going to look like I've been sliced in half! I think I'm going to have to ask him to cut some teeth marks into it to make it look like a shark bite.

Despite all this, he expects that I will only have about 2 weeks in hospital and will then be able to walk out. This will be followed by quite a long convalescence at home, but it seems, not immobilised flat on my back, but able to move about etc, which is quite amazing. He even suggested I might be raring to get back to work after only 6 weeks - not sure about that myself though!

Long term he expects me to be eating and drinking normally (I will get full more quickly, so smaller meals, more regularly, but then I knew that), exercising normally etc with no real restrictions on my life.

Of course as this is cancer, there is a high chance of a recurrence, and currently the survival rate (i.e. 100% lifetime cure) of this type of cancer is only 35%, but again, I'm not too worried about what kills me in the end (if it's not cancer it would be heart disease or something like that anyway), its more about how long I get from now until then, and even if the cancer reoccurs it doesn't necessarily mean that it happens quickly and many people live long and almost normal lives. I guess it's the not knowing that is the hard bit once you've come out of the other side of the first bout, but at least once you've had it once they are looking more actively for a recurrence and more likely to catch it quick.

I'm obviously focused on being one of the 99.8% who survive the surgery and one of the 35% who are completely cured, but I am realistic to the alternatives - I'll just deal with them if it ever comes to that!

Martin, any of that spicy enough for you? :)

By the way, continued thanks for the cards, calls, texts, blog comments, good wishes, abuse (thanks again Martin) - you all really are helping and I really do appreciate it!

Cheers,

Colin x