That is good to hear that at least someone else was offered it. Unfortunately they were not able to complete it in your dad's case. My mom thinks the world of this surgeon and I think a second opinion would be out of the question. He was her surgeon for breast cancer five years ago and followed up with her for the entire time. Laparoscopic appears to be the "gold standard" for colon cancer,but not for rectal due to the few studies that have been done to date. We will just have to have complete faith in his judgement. He did mention that if there was any leakage,then a conversion would have to be done.
By the way, did you dad fare well with the rectal cancer? Did he end up with a bag? My mom never had a colonoscopy and had mentioned it to her oncologist that she should have one. Hopefully, she caught it in time. She had no symptoms,but was diagnosed with rectal cancer. Unfortunately, she had breast cancer follow- ups with three doctors for the past five years and not one of them mentioned getting a colonoscopy. I think all doctors, especially oncologists should be promoting colonoscopies,since colon/rectal cancers are preventable.