After getting over the initial shock from my regular oncology doctor telling me that I have cancer on my liver, I made an appointment to see a top liver surgeon about my dianogsis. This surgeon was recommended to me by my oncology doctor and is said to be the best at what he does in the area.
I was hoping that the surgeon would tell me that he can remove the small liver tumors using laparoscopy and I might be in the hospital for a day to two. My oncology doctor even mentioned that I might not need chemotherapy. I was pretty hopeful until I heard what the surgeon wanted to do.
First, he said I was a good candidate for surgery, given my age (41) and good overall health. He then said that he would want to remove up to 75% of my existing liver. This really shocked me. It sounded all wrong, what about he laparoscopy I was thinking of?? The reason he wants to remove so much liver is two fold, the more he removes the more confident he feels he has removed all of the cancer. I was told that eventually the liver grows back and the hope is I return to a normal life. I was told by a nurse that within 6 months to a year, my liver would grow back to its original size.
In order to perform the surgery, he suggested that I have something called a portal vein embolization to shut down half of the liver's blood flow and increase the flow to the other half of the liver. The point of doing this is to grow new good liver that will remain after the surgery. So lets say he removes 75% but if I have my liver grow to 120% of normal size, I will have 45% left. I was told you can surive on around 20% of your liver but having more is better for a quicker and safer outcome.
My pre-surgery procedure to grow the good liver is scheduled for early June, an MRI to confirm the growth of the liver is on July 1st and the acutal surgery is in mid July. Recovery time for the surgery is about a week in the hospital and 2-3 weeks at home.
I will post next on how the surgery went.
No comments:
Post a Comment