Husband scheduled for Laparoscopic Whipple
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I had a robotic Whipple a year ago (Stage IIIa ECC). Recovery was surprisingly quick, requiring just 5 days in the hospital. At one month post-op, Mary’s advice on exercise is spot-on. It took me a while to recover my strength and stamina but by a month was walking 2-4 miles a day and it helped tremendously in dealing with chemo (capecitabine) side effects.
Now I’m 12 months post-op and NED. Life is largely back to normal, albeit with smaller meal portions. I’ll take it!
Best of luck with recovery and what comes next.
Patrick
Hi Ski4fun,
Welcome to our community. It is wonderful news that your husband’s cancer can be addressed with surgery. A Whipple operation is a big surgery, but it sounds like he has a well-experienced surgeon.
There are a lot of postings on this board about experiences with Whipples, which are accessible using the discussion board search engine. There are also a lot of good resources on the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation website for newly diagnosed patients. If the surgery can be accomplished laparoscopically, hopefully that will lead to an easier recovery.
From my own experience with a liver resection, my suggestions would be: to get walking as soon as this is feasible while in the hospital – the hospital staff will help with this; to have a big roll of plastic wrap ready when he gets home – to wrap around the torso before showering to keep the incisions dry; and to accept that the surgery rearranges one’s insides sufficiently that it will take some time to get used to a new normal – like occasional twinges around incisions, or figuring out what foods to avoid for awhile.
I hope everything goes well with your husband’s surgery and best wishes that his recovery is uneventful.
Regards, Mary
Hi everyone,
My husband was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma after developing jaundice quite suddenly while we had covid. It seems it brought it to light on the early side, and we are hopeful. He is mid-50s and very strong and active, though he has lost about 25 pounds through the combination of these things.
He is scheduled next week for a laparoscopic whipple with a highly qualified doctor who does these every week. As of now, the ERCP and CT scans show no signs of spread.
I feel like we still don’t know much about post-op and what to expect with recovery. I would love to know how recovery was for patients in similar situations, what to expect, if you had helpful hints for comfort, etc. Thanks.
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