Post Surgery Report

Surgery went very well - my doctor called it textbook perfect. My insides apparently look great post radiation, with considerably more healing and less scarring than expected. While the pathology report indicated nothing left of the tumor but a mere pin head sized spot, unfortunately there were also four positive lymph nodes so the cancer remains stage III. This stung. Although I understood that there would be no change in the post surgery chemo regimen regardless, knowing that the tumor had all but disappeared entirely I had convinced myself there would be downstaging - and all along we had thought there had been only one or two suspicious lymph nodes, so I hadn't prepared myself for the higher count. Ultimately though, its all gone and that's what counts.

Recovery from surgery itself hasn't been difficult. I was up and around the next morning, out of the hospital a day early and ditched the Vicodin within 36 hours of being home. Learning to live with my new Frankenstein abdomen however has been very difficult.

Because radiated tissue typically does not heal as quickly as normal tissue, the standard treatment in a case like mine is to create an ileostomy - similar to a colostomy but further up in the intestine, this bypasses the surgical site and allows it more time to heal. This is short term and will be reversed in about six months after chemo is over, but that hasn't made it any easier. Its changed what and how I eat, what I can wear, how I sleep. But this is all physical and easier to move past than the mental bruising. Learning to care for and live with this has raised more stress and anxiety in me than I have ever experienced - frankly more than I thought I was capable of.

Early on, outlining my course of treatment to Kristy, she quickly put it in perspective - 'Ok, so you'll poop into a bag for a few months, big deal - you'll watch Van grow up, graduate college, get married.' I think about this every day - I can live with this, to live for that.