The Final Countdown

It's the final countdown

The final countdown - Europe

I am currently sitting in my hospital bed, counting down the time until I am wheeled into the operating room to have a surgery that will leave me looking like Frankenstein's monster. Well I wont actually look like a monster, but the scar is going to be pretty impressive. Although i'm scared and nervous for this surgery, I'm still amazed that it is happening and I know that I need to have it. Without this surgery, the cancer is highly likely to come back, so I just have to suck it up and pretend to be superwoman.

"The surgery is necessary to prolong your life" 

When i was first diagnosed, I was told that the cancer had spread to my liver and that there were multiple tumours in my liver. What I didn't know or didn't want to know, was how much of my liver was over taken with cancer. Later on, I found out that one of the tumours was 10cm and pretty much took up the entire right lobe of my liver, and there were smaller tumours in the left lobe. I guess this is why they told me that surgery was not an option to begin with. Many people have asked why they can't just give me a new liver, and the reason is because it can spread to the new liver which would be a waste of a perfectly healthy liver. Besides, I wouldn't want to take a healthy liver away from someone else who may need it more. So, the only option is a liver resection, which is where they remove a portion or portions of the liver that is diseased with the ideal outcome of all the cancer being removed. The awesome thing about the liver is that it can regenerate to its original size within a few weeks to months. So although they may need to take quite a large amount of the liver out, within a short amount of time, my liver will grow back to its normal size. It will also be able to function the same way a full normal sized liver does. It just wont look like a normal liver.

"I'm a pretty conservative surgeon"

I met with the surgeon, Dr Adam Bartlett, last week and I can honestly say that he is one of the best surgeons that I have ever had to deal with. Of course, he just had to mentioned his success rate - out of 800 patients, he has only had one die. That's pretty reassuring in my humble opinion. He was also pretty honest about the situation, and admitted that he doesn't know what he will actually do until he slices me open. Although I have had multiple scans leading up to surgery, the scans can only tell him so much. So, we discussed the two procedures he may use, depending on what my liver looks like when he opens me up.

The first procedure is just a normal liver resection where he will go in, remove the entire right love of the liver and remove the parts of the left lobe that contain the tumours and then sew or staple me back together. His problem with this procedure is that I could go into liver failure due to removing such a large amount of liver. So while, he would love to just do everything in one surgery, he also knows that this is probably not the best option. The other procedure is called the ALPPS procedure. This is a relatively new technique that involves resecting the liver in two steps and makes use of the regenerative capacity of the liver. The first surgery will involve Dr Bartlett cutting off the blood supply to the right lobe so it only functions at 40%. He will then remove the parts of the left lobe and tag the remaining arteries and veins that will either stay or go during surgery two. He will also wrap the right lobe in a plastic bag to stop it from sticking to other organs. After a week, he will go back in and completely remove the right lobe. By completing the surgery in two steps, it reduces the risk of liver failure, and allows the liver to grow significantly within a short timeframe. Dr Bartlett prefers this option as it has a higher success rate and allows the liver to grow quickly. So, hopefully I'll only spend about six hours in the operating room and hopefully only two weeks in hospital. This is the more conservative approach and Dr Bartlett has refined it from being a 12 hour surgery to only four or five hours, and the second surgery is barely even a surgery as it only takes about 45 minutes.

Obviously, I'm not a surgeon, so I don't know all the ins and outs of what will be happening. But this is my basic understanding of the surgery, As much as I would prefer to only have one surgery, I would prefer to have Dr Bartlett take a more conservative approach rather than trying to be a total rockstar and have something go wrong. He is a rockstar anyway, but let's be honest, we don't want him to be too risky.

I'm looking pretty good in my hospital gown and socks and I'm first on the list for surgery this morning. Haven't slept too much but at least I'll have a nice long nap today. Got my mumma sitting with me waiting to be wheeled up to the operating room. Wish me luck!

It's the Final Countdown!!