nickysfight's Cancer Blog

May 8, 2007

Surgery - April 23rd

Views: 174

Hi everyone. Mom will have her surgery on April 23rd with Dr. Given! They said it should last about 3 hours.

We were very suprised about several things that Dr. Given told us at the surgery meeting. They will be removing Mom’s ovaries because there is a known risk of the cancer spreading to that area with Mom’s type of cancer. Fortunately, Mom doesn’t particularly need those anymore so that wasn’t too devastating. The other was that Mom will be getting a permanent colostomy. We were really suprised by this because in our initial meeting with Dr. Given, he said it looked like he would have enough room to save the colon or if he didn’t we could talk to a rectal cancer specialist. This time, he didn’t even mention saving the colon as an option. I called Dr. Barrington to discuss this because frankly, we were a little shocked. She too said that she thought Mom would need a colostomy…… but she said that she knew this from the beginning. Again, I was shocked. We were never given the impression that this was the case. It reminded me again of the importance of asking lots of questions! The funny thing is that our family already thinks that Julie and I are completely annoying because we ask so many questions. Julie sends lists of questions for Mom to bring to the doctor. And it still isn’t enough.

We really want Mom to seek a second opinion about the colostomy and surgery but she nor my Dad seems interested in doing that. I don’t think a colostomy is THAT big of a deal, and definately it’s not the end of the world, especially when compared with the alternative, but if it can be avoided then obviously one would want to avoid it. However, we DEFINATELY are more concerned with getting the entire primary tumor removed first and foremost and if that means she needs a colostomy then whatever.
Mom and the Dr. Given were joking how a colostomy may actually be convenient with Mom’s job being a truckdriver! Pretty funny…..and it will be convenient.

Mom seems sort of okay with the idea of having the colostomy sometimes and sometimes it seems like she is kind of freaking out about it but I’m sure she will be fine once she gets used to it. She has been doing a lot of reading up on it. I would love to hear from anyone that has one or has been close to someone that has/had one. We have a lot of questions about it. There is a group of nurses that will over some stuff with her but I think talking to someone that has one themselves would be more helpful.