chan13

Well thank you all for posting. All good points and helpful insights. Dad is being treated by Dr. Chapman at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. I think this sight is very familiar with Dr. Chapman. He is very experienced in treating cc. Dr. Chapman said it is very, very rare to have a patient that requires both a Klatskin and Whipple however it has been done. Very few in the U.S. but he has done these together. He has performed multiple Klatskin procedures and Whipple procedures, this is part of his speciality. He assured us he is well trained and confident he’ll perform both on my dad at the same time. So yes, Marion, we’re having both procedures.

My dad does not want to have multiple opinions. If we weren’t in such good hands with Dr. Chapman, I would push for the 2nd and even 3rd opinion.

They replaced his internal stents and tubing today. Something that is apparently only an in-and-out, 10 minute procedure didn’t turn out that way. Dad was in so much pain with the new tubes since they are larger than the original tubes that they had to take care of his pain with an IV (oral pain meds were NOT doing it). Dad is resting comfortably now though. His first stent/tube was placed on March 26 and the second was placed on April 12.

I do understand that the jaundice ‘stains’ the skin and takes weeks to go away. Some days dad doesn’t even look ‘yellow’ but other days he’s yellow. His eyes are a big give away. Last check, his biliruben was at 13.9 and Dr. Chapman wants it down to 10 to perform the surgery. And that is all we are waiting on to get these tumors out!

The tumor in the bile ducts coming from the liver (tumor is not in the liver at all) has not been biopsied so we aren’t sure it’s cancerous there. Dr. Chapman did say that in 90% of the cases they are cancerous so they will treat it as cancer and remove it. The other tumor at the common bile duct and head of pancreas was biopsied and positive for cancer, probably a stage 2.

We are very hopeful and confident in the surgeon we have. Chapman is great. I’ve read a lot of great things about him on here and that just confirms our choice.

I will write down some of these questions you all suggested. They were good ones! Thank you so much!
Chan