Post Surgery

Hi I am needing all the info on post stomach removal I can get.My dad is going to have his stomach removed and the esophagus attached to the intestine august 15,08.The surgeon that is going to be working on my dad says that he is very very good at this particular surgery.He stated that if he gets in there and everything looks like he expects it to that eventually my dad can lead a normal life other than eating habits of course.Even though it is in all five layers he claims we got it early enough.I don't know.But he did give my dad a lot hope so hopefully that will help him thru.    I need to know what to expect after the surgery when we get him home.The doctor seems to think that he will be in the hospital about a week with first 2 days in ICU of course and the first on respirator.He will have a feeding tube.And I am sure he will be sore since how the surgery is in the stomach,an that getting up and down will probably be worse that actually being up.At least that is how it was with a minor appendectomy.I can only imagine the pain with this.Will he be able to eat soon after,will he to eat softer foods for awhile,how does the feeding tube work,how long b4 he can get up and comfortably etc.ANY INFORMATION WILL BE A BLESSING. What about mentally?Should we give him something for depression.We did with his chemo,the post 2 to 3 weeks of that were miserable for him.My dad has been a very very hard worker all of his life and has endured a lot of stress and pain (and his dadburn vitals are better  than his n2 boys)however this is a whloe different kind of stress when you are held down I know.I am sorry fir running on.My DAD will be 68 7/26/08 

 

 

My husband underwent a total gastrectomy with a esophageal-duodenal anastamosis, which is what you described your dad will be having. After surgery, he of course started with liquids then moved to solids and two weeks later was eating most anything he wanted. It has been almost a year now and he eats almost anything except most meats. Radiation caused more problems with swallowing than did the actual surgery. 8 months after surgery he did develop a radiation induced esophageal stricture which was easily dilated. He does have what is considered to be some nerve damage from radiation and some days he has a harder time swallowing than other days. He too had a jejunostomy tube after surgery, it lasted for 3 months until a nurse accidentaly pulled it out. He then went on TPN for another three months while all the effects of the very aggressive chemoradiation could subside and he could swallow again. 

Truthfully, the surgery was the easy part, we too had a fabulous surgeon. It was the chemoradiation that caused the problems. It now has been almost a year and all scans show him to be cancer free.

Good luck to you both. 

On 7/19/2008 oldest son wrote:

Hi I am needing all the info on post stomach removal I can get.My dad is going to have his stomach removed and the esophagus attached to the intestine august 15,08.The surgeon that is going to be working on my dad says that he is very very good at this particular surgery.He stated that if he gets in there and everything looks like he expects it to that eventually my dad can lead a normal life other than eating habits of course.Even though it is in all five layers he claims we got it early enough.I don't know.But he did give my dad a lot hope so hopefully that will help him thru.    I need to know what to expect after the surgery when we get him home.The doctor seems to think that he will be in the hospital about a week with first 2 days in ICU of course and the first on respirator.He will have a feeding tube.And I am sure he will be sore since how the surgery is in the stomach,an that getting up and down will probably be worse that actually being up.At least that is how it was with a minor appendectomy.I can only imagine the pain with this.Will he be able to eat soon after,will he to eat softer foods for awhile,how does the feeding tube work,how long b4 he can get up and comfortably etc.ANY INFORMATION WILL BE A BLESSING. What about mentally?Should we give him something for depression.We did with his chemo,the post 2 to 3 weeks of that were miserable for him.My dad has been a very very hard worker all of his life and has endured a lot of stress and pain (and his dadburn vitals are better  than his n2 boys)however this is a whloe different kind of stress when you are held down I know.I am sorry fir running on.My DAD will be 68 7/26/08 

 

 

Hi there, My father was diagnosed with stomach cancer in late February 2008. He had a total gastrectomy the end of March 2008. He had the same thing done where the esophagus was attached to the intestine. I was there for the surgery. He is a 49 year old man that was in great physical shape. He went through the surgery pretty well. He spent a total of 13 day in the hospital and never was in ICU. He did amazingly well. He was told that this surgery is one of the most painful surgeries that you can undergo and they were not kidding. It was extremely painful for him but he made it through it. He was hooked up to every tube you could imagine for the first few days. Once they started removing tubes after about 3 days he started feeling better and better. First he had to drink some kind of liquid and get x-rays done to ensure that nothing was leaking internally at the joining. After that he was on liquids and gradually moved to solid foods before leaving the hospital. It takes a full 8 weeks for sure to recover from this. It's a long healing process but the end result will be worth it. My father is now able to eat pretty much anything he wants and does not have any trouble swallowing. I am surprised at the portions that he can eat as we suspected that they would have to be so small in size but they are actually normal portions. They know when they have had enough. My father is not undergoing chemotherapy. That is the worst of it. He became severely dehydrated and ended up in hospital for another week just recently. When the removed his feeding tube (because they leave it in long enough to heal over) they yanked it out and created a kink in his bowel. We didn't know this and thought it was the effects of the chemo. Turns out that is what it was and now my father is doing great again. The small bit of cancer that is left which they say is about 12mm has shrunk by 2mm since May 7, 2008 when he started treatment. He is on his way to a great recovery. They say that the cancer may never be completely gone, that they will have to maintain it. Who knows. If they can maintain it, then we are happy with that. He is a young man that has many years left !

Thank you very much for your reply.It sounds about like I figured it would be as far as being terribly sore and my dad is 20 yrs older.I hope that he can cope with it as yours did.My dad has benn an extremely hard worker all of his life but this is a whole different kind of fight.And the difficulty he had with chemradtiation that he finished about 4weeks ago I really did not expect him to go along with the surgery.However the surgeon was pretty confident in his ability and the circumstances which gave us and dad a lot of hope.

My dad also got bad dehydrated after chemo twice.That is pretty bed in itself.

Hopefully he will be able to fight it out and I the V.A. will get he and mom some help after words.I know its going to be hard on her also.

Again thank you very much and if you can think of anything else please let me know.      May you be blessed

Thank you for your reply.

How old is your husband? What is he able to do physically? Was he in terrible pain afterwards and how long? Any helpful hints that we can do to make this any easier on him?

My husband was 50 years old at the time, and in excellent shape aside from the cancer. He had very little pain after surgery, (insist on a postoperative epidural.) As they weaned him off the epidural he still had little pain (again, fabulous surgeon) He was in the hospital for 5 days and took no pain pills after he got home. He can do anything he wants now, and truly getting back to normal life. 

Good luck,

Lissa 

 

On 7/23/2008 lissa01 wrote:

My husband was 50 years old at the time, and in excellent shape aside from the cancer. He had very little pain after surgery, (insist on a postoperative epidural.) As they weaned him off the epidural he still had little pain (again, fabulous surgeon) He was in the hospital for 5 days and took no pain pills after he got home. He can do anything he wants now, and truly getting back to normal life. 

Good luck,

Lissa 

My Dad finally had his surgery last Friday the 22nd.Everything was a great success and he is home trying to recover.I will admit even though he has worked very very hard all of his life he is still not very good with this kind of pain and aggrevation.And with all the good news,new opportunities and loving people around him he could still do better than he does.

 Any way having said that what are some good foods for him through the first 6 to 8 weeks.They have told him what he needs to do and soft foods but I thought that I would still ask for any kind of help in coping and eating and the every day stress that he is going through.Any advice will be appreciated .