Hi ahappyhayes1199,
It doesn't seem to matter what you do, cancer has bad consequences.
For my gastro-intestinal cancer, I was put on a chemo-surgery-chemo protocol. Surgery found that the first chemo seemed to have successfully killed off "all" of the cancer - note that there is no guarantee on "all". But they had to take out mu entire stomach to find out that there were no live cancer cells to be found. So now I live without my stomach and it is no big deal.
But what if I hadn't had the surgery? I would be constantly worrying whether or not the first round of chemo had been successful. If it hadn't been successful, to what extent is the cancer spreading to other organs and tissues?
Again, for me, it was not such a significant question because we can survive quite happily without a stomach. A few minor considerations to be made regarding consumption of food, but not insurmountable.
So you need to consider what state you would be in with and without the operation. Speak with your surgeon and your oncologist and anyone else who will listen about your concerns. Take there responses away with you, think them through and then go back to get any gaps in understanding answered. For me, it took a 4th year student doctor to successfully explain to me why a partial gastrectomy would leave me worse off than a full gastrectomy.
So just keep asking about the pros and cons of all of the options (including the "do nothing" option) until you are content with whatever decision that you make for yourself.
Warm regards,
Rick
