Surgery appt

Hello all Matt here.

Today my ma and I accompanied my pop to his surgery appt with Dr. Quan. It was stressful but we finally received some good news. Dr. Quan will attempt a resection of my dad's cancer via surgery assuming there are no further changes to the clinical picture.

My dad has been given a tentative surgery date of April 22. That's 3 weeks from now. Usually it takes 4-6 weeks for stuff like this so we are very fortunate. In the meantime, my dad will receive a colonoscopy to ensure he doesn't have colon cancer, which has spread to his liver rather than cholangiocarcinoma (cancer of the bile duct, which is the presumptive diagnosis).  He will also receive a CT scan of his chest and abdomen to rule out any spread of the cancer to his lungs or other abdominal organs.  (My dad had a chest xray in december which was clear so hopefully there will be no surprises on the CT scan. Further, the MRI he had already did not show any lymph node involvement, and his aorta, pancreas and adrenals seemed to be unremarkable which is a good sign).

Assuming all imaging is unremarkable, surgery will go ahead April 22. The goal will be to cut out all of the tumour and in doing so my dad will lose the left half of his liver at least.  It will be major surgery lasting 8ish hours and he will spend 7-10 days in hospital afterwards barring no complications. Recovery out of hospital will be an additional 6 weeks, at which point chemotherapy would begin.  It's a long road ahead but today was a mini victory for our family.

Thank you to everyone for your prayers, love and support.  If anyone has any further questions feel free to call me on my cell - I don't mind talking about it.  The next step is waiting for the results of the imaging and scope. We'll update then.

march 29 2016

They have agreed to operate. April 22
Matt will add to the blog later today for more details. It's a good start.

march 28 2016

Rick will see Dr. Quan tomorrow at 1pm
Dr. Quan is one of the best liver surgeons in Canada

I will update this blog as we have information

Rick and I and Michael, Alyssa, Matt, Angie, Holly and Chris would like to thank everyone for their support and prayers over the past couple of very long days.