Post Surgery Update

This is a very hard post to do so I will make it brief and just the facts as I know it right now.  The surgeon was unable to remove the tumor from Joe's pancreas due to it's attachment to the main artery running through the area. We knew from the scans that this was a possibility.  He did remove Joe's gall bladder as it appeared to be non functioning and may have been the cause of the 2 infections he has had in the last few months.  He also created a new connection from Joe's stomach to his large intestine.  This was done due to the fact that if the tumor should grow anymore, it could possibly cause an obstruction from where the stomach normally dumps into the large intestine.  So for now, he has 2 passage ways from stomach to intestine.  I think he said he also did something about constructing a new area for the bile duct that should keep the bilirubins from doing their up/down routine anymore, but I'm not to clear on that since the surgeon was drawing the diagram of what he had done on his blue scrub pants with a blue pen. There was clear evidence that the chemo & radiation had had positive effect on the tumor as there were dead cancer cells. Just not enough for what we needed.  Also, the surgeon said that there was no evidence anywhere of an spread of the cancer outside the pancreas. More chemo is in his future and them we will re-assess what our options are.  Joe is resting comfortably right now, though really doped up.  Until we see the doctor tomorrow, I can't really speculate on how long his hospital stay will be.  As for me, my emotions are so rattled right now that I think it's more numb than anything else.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be more coherent and have some more information.  For now, thank you for all your prayers and support.  As Joe has said on his videos, "Happy Trails".