Randi

Thanx to everyone so far for responding so quickly. It’s nice to hear from people, live people, who are going through or have gone through this.

Gerry: I had my Whipple surgery on 12/15/09, about 4 weeks ago. I think I did very well overall. The surgery took 6 hours with an additional 2 hours in recovery. I woke up in a room (no ICU) surrounded by my family. I did not have any drains, but I am told that is the exception not the rule. I had an NG tube in my nose and a Foley catheter. They had placed an epidural before I went into surgery to help me manage the pain medications locally (instead of thru and IV) and I HIGHLY recommend that to anyone going thru this surgery. It delivers the pain meds right to the spot of the pain and you don’t get as much of a morphine brain fog.
I left the hospital after 7 days, which again was quicker than they had anticiplated. They told me 10-14 days initially, but I was off of the IV morphine, no longer hooked to IVs, and taking food and pain meds by mouth.
Some of the hardest things for me to adjust to once I came home was constipation, anemia (which I left the hospital with), and total exhaustion. I slept quite a bit the first 2 weeks and that was frustrating. The constipation was exacerbated by having to take iron and also the narcotic pain medication.
It’s been 4 weeks and I usually take only one nap a day, my constipation is being to resolve and my anemia has cleared up. I did lose 12 pounds since the operation, mostly because I just don’t have much of an appetite, but I force myself to eat little meals and I drink milkshakes.
All in all, recovery is not as bad as I thought it would be.

Lainy: I am located in Rochester, New York and am going to the Wilmot Cancer Center. I asked the oncologist (Alok Khorana) if I should get a second opinion and he said I could but that the protocol is the same and the decision is really up to me since there are no statistics to suggest one over the other.
Can you tell me a little more about what a “cyber knife” is?