After reading many of the posts here, it is with great hesitatency and a tear in my eye that I try to join in. I was DX with EC in July 2007. I'm Very lucky in that is was caught very early due to a followup on my Barrett's Esophagus condition; I only had a small spot at the junction of my Esophagus and Stomach. I had the Surgery on 7/27/07, to remove it. Five days later they still could not get me awake from the surgery, when all of my esophagus and 80% of my stomach died and a second surgery had to be preformed to removed all of my esophagus and the 80% of my stomach. The surgeon and team of medical Dr.'s had to keep me in a medically induced coma for thrity-one days before I regained conciousness. During this time I was pronounced dead twice (and my wife was notified) and then resuccitated. At one time My Wife tells me that I had tubes in my intestine, another in the small part of my stomach that was left to me, a tube in each lung coming out under my shoulder blades for drainage, a ventalator for breathing and a cathera, IV tube and then they had to install a filter in a main artery to stop the blood clots.
I only share the above for those of you who are still in the middle of the fight and are wondering if is possible to survive the treatment. IT IS! WITH THE HELP OF GOD! I've just had a followup CT Scan and the Dr.'s couldn't find any sigh of cancer at this time. I'm back to work and almost back to full strength. I did lose down from a weight of 303 lbs to a current weight of 235 lbs. which is great, I think.
Now my surgeon is talking about reconstruction of my esophagus using a piece of my colon or small intestine. The mortality rate seems to be very high ( up to 13%) on this surgery. I would very much appreciate hearing from someone who has had this reconstruction and if he/she has been able to eat near normally afterwards. My only alternative is to stay on the feeding tube for the rest of my natural life and I am only sixty years old.
Good luck to each of you, and May God Bless You,
Jimmie