Just Wow

HEALTH UPDATE: It’s true. Surgery is now a possibility.

Without getting into too many details, there is an opportunity to get out the portion of the pancreas and my entire spleen where the tumor was in hopes that if any cells remaining are active, they would then be removed. They might already be dead and the surgery would be for nothing but at least we would know. There could also be active cancer still in the vessels leading to my liver but we cannot remove those…but we can test a vein leading to the vessels to see if we get a clean margin. This is not the complicated whipple surgery. This is a big surgery but not like that one. Risks are leaking, bleeding, infection. Recovery would be 5 days in the hospital, one month out. I called it one hell of a biopsy and the dr agreed. LOL. I am getting a second opinion, mostly for clarity. No decisions need to be made right this minute but the surgeon thought if I’m gonna do it, now is a good time. The PET scan is not conclusive, so this is really the only way to know for sure the status of live cancer cells.

Ramblings….

Wow! I didn’t quite expect this option. I’ve been told all along, no surgery. This isn’t the remove it all type of surgery we had hoped for upon diagnosis but to be talking about surgery at all blows my mind. The way I look at it, assuming the surgery goes ok…the worst case scenario is that there is still active cancer in the tumor and into the vessels. Best case, it is ALL DEAD. Do I really think I can live not knowing this answer? Can you imagine if it is all dead? What an incredible leap for science! This drug has already proven to be incredible but think of what it would mean if it decimated an entire 22 cm pancreatic tumor? I think I need to know. It’s like being on let’s make a deal and choosing the big deal but you can’t see what it is. That is just simply not going to work.

I’m making a list of questions as I let this sink in. I think I need a day at a real spa to really think this through.