Stomach / Gastric Cancer

[Anonymous]

Hi Rick,

Just wondering how are you, how is your eating, and how do you feel today. I am having the total gastrectomy operation this coming Monday. Had a great steak yesterday at the local restaurant, as I have a feeling I may not have any in the future... The main thing now is to survive the operation and hopefully avoid any complications... and then to learn what you can eat, and how you are going to live without stomach... Please let me know how you're going these days, snd how do you feel. I hope you are well, and this would be very encouraging for me...

I would very appreciate your reply, thanks Rick.

Best regards,

Eugene

[RJG]

Hi Eugene,

It is about 14 months now since my operation. I had 2 big dinners in the week leading up to my big event - one with friends and one with family. I referred to these as my "Last Suppers", because they were the last time I would be able to "stomach" a hearty meal with thiose who are near and dear to me.

Fortunately, the operation showed that the first round of chemo had been sucessful in killing off "all" of the cancer - pity that they have to remove my stomach to find that out.

I now eat meals that are about 1/2 to 2/3 the size of meals from before the operation. I have found that I need to avoid raw onion in particular, plus tomatoes and capsicums can sometimes cause problems. Eating sweet food after a "large" meal also causes significant problems - so just eat desert before dinner.

About twice a month I wake up at 2 am with quite severe indigestion. The actual feeling is hard to explain - it is something completely new to me, probably the nerve signals are all mixed up because I don't have a stomach any more and my plubming has been rearranged a little. Anyway, I do take a couple of drops of Digest-Zen under my tongue and I can usually get back to sleep within 30 minutes.

Gotta get back to work now. Let me know if you have any other questions and I will try to answer them over the weekend. Or send me a private message and I will send you my phone number for a chat.

Best wishes,

Rick

[Jo_BSYD]

Hi Eugene,

I just want to wish you all the best for your surgery.

[Anonymous]

Hi Rick!

Glad to hear from you!

Your "Gotta back to work" means a lot to me! My hope is to get back to work too, one day next year. I hope very much that my chemo treatment worked as expected. I was coping quite well with the first chemo (i.e. four two week cycles), but I was told that the next chemo (after the operation) would be much more difficult to cope with... How did you go through your post-operation chemo treatment?

Regarding my operation on Monday, I understand this is my only chance. Just hope for a bit of luck, and getting ready psycologically for some 'difficult time' in a hospital after the operation.

Will have a bbq and a beer with my wife today. Wishing you a very good weekend!

Best regards,

Eugene

[Anonymous]

Thank you Jo!

I hope to get in touch again one day.

Have a very good weekend!

Regards,

Eugene

[Anonymous]

Hello again Rick,

I was just reading some other posts and found your reply to some one:

 " I have a really good prognosis (other than having had my stomach removed and a "mass" having been identified in my liver in a recent CT scan)"

Rick, would you please tell me more about that "mass" found in your liver? Hope it was not cancerous? Did you have any extra investigation?

Regards,

Eugene

[RJG]

Hi Eugene,

I had an MRI of my liver with contrast. This isn't covered in any way by Medicare or private health insurance. By shopping around (there are 2 private medical imaging service providers in CBR and I didn't want to wait for it to be done at The Canberra Hospital), I managed to save over $100.

The mass in my liver was assessed to be just a vascular mass - something that is moderately common in middle age.

So I will be around for quite a while to come.

Best wishes for your op tomorrow. From my experience, you probably won't feel like loggin in for at least a week or maybe a lot longer.

Rick