Tuesday February 13th Doug and I met with the surgeon who confirmed I have pancreas cancer. I spent the night in the hospital so that they can do a chest ct scan to ensure there is no metastasis into the lung. Good news is there is no metastasis into the lung and I’m cleared for surgery on February 22 at Sunnybrook hospital.
Surgery will be complex. They need to remove the cancer from the pancreas. But in order to get to it, they need to remove part of my stomach, part of my pancreas, my gallbladder, and duodenum. And then... put me back together. The procedure is called the Whipple procedure -
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/whipple-procedure/about/pac-20385054 The surgical team at Sunnybrook -
https://sunnybrook.ca/content/?page=upper-gastrointestinal-cancer-hpb-gi Dr. Law will perform the surgery. Surgery is expected to take about 8 hours. Following surgery I'll be in the hospital for about a week. And then home to recover.
I’ll be recovering for about 3 months followed by 6 months of chemo.
