Liver Resection

FormerMember over 4 years ago

1 reply
114 subscribers
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Good Evening All,

I’m not new here, but haven’t ever posted before.

Bit of background, my 33 year old sister was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in Aug 2020 when her baby was 9 weeks old. At the time they found a 5cm bowel tumour and 2 very small mets in the liver.

She had a stoma fitted in sept 2020 and the she had 4 rounds of chemo followed by 5 days of radiotherapy on the Bowel, and we were then told that the bowel tumour had had a complete response and was “no longer radiologically apparent” but that the liver mets had increased from 2 to 5 (still all very small, 1cm of less)

Tomorrow she is going in for a liver resection and frankly we are all terrified.

Has anyone had similar and can give me any reassurance? I’m not 100% sure what I’m here for but to say this has been a difficult time would be the understatement of the century.

Thank you in advance for your replies

Maisie xx

court over 4 years ago

The night before surgery can be tough but let me reassure you a little . The liver units are highly specialised centres of clinical excellence. The High dependency units are staffed by nurses who are excellent and again very skilled in their field . The surgeons generally work with dedicated anaesthetists and theatre staff who work together weekly ! They do this frequently.
The very tool the surgeon carries out the resection with sears as it cuts . It’s very specialised and they take exceptionally good care of them .

One surgeon advised me to consider the additional mets as all part of the original spread and just revealing itself . Despite that being upsetting it’s better to know where it is so it can be resected when the surgeon is in there .

My mum originally had four wedge resections and the following year she had a referral to a centre of excellence they removed 73% of her liver . The great thing about the liver is the speed it regenerates . My mum has an odd shaped liver but it has worked well for her and that’s ten years after her resection .

Hope it’s given you a little lift tonight . Your sister is so young to be going through this and I I’ll be thinking of her tomorrow.

Think of her on her journey to being cancer free and it sounds as though she is going to have a great team surrounding her to help her with her recovery.

But this is all tough to go through and to watch someone you care for too!

Better days ahead !

Court

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