Surgery Update

January 18, 2017

We are now 4 days away from leaving on our much anticipated trip to DISNEY! The excitement in this house has been at an all time high and as Ben puts it, "Amy has had outbursts of excitement daily!" (He's totally right!) It the midst of all the crazy news in his household the past few months this trip certainly has given us so much to look forward to! I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my spare time when it's done!

Last week Ben and I went up to Hamilton for an appointment for genetic testing. Since this type of cancer doesn't run in his family, and he's only 30, they want to see if Ben carries the gene which would help with the future of our kids and his family members. He went off for blood work and we will wait for these results to come. On our way home from Hamilton we received a call from the surgeons office who asked if we could come to her office today, January 18th. This has been an appointment we've been very anxious for.

Our meeting went really well. The surgeon took her time with us and explained everything to us in great detail. This is what we are faced with now...

When we return from Florida Ben will be admitted to hospital for a procedure called a portal vein embolization. This procedure will clip a vein to induce regrowth on the left side of his liver for his planned liver resection to the right side. Basically enlarging the liver to help with the surgery. Ben will have to wait 3-4 weeks after this procedure for a scan where they look to ensure the liver was successfully enlarged safely for surgery. If the embolization was successful, liver resection will take place. During this waiting period Ben will most likely receive radiation for the cancer on the primary site, his colon. This will be to hopefully contain the cancer to his colon so they are able to deal with the liver first. Removing the cancer from his liver is most important so Ben doesn't go into liver failure or the cancer doesn't spread to other organs. Because of the amount of cancer in Ben's liver they will remove 75% of his liver, which is the most you can remove during a liver resection. Ben will be in hospital for 10-12 days as they monitor him in recovery and ensure his liver function studies improve. It takes 2-3 weeks for the liver to improve, or show any signs of liver failure, which we obviously pray will not happen. An MRI will be done about 2-3 weeks after the resection to assess his liver. At this point if everything looks good, Ben can wait up to 2 months to proceed with surgery for removal of the tumour in his colon. At this point if they get everything any recurrence would likely happen within the first 2 years.

This all sounds great right? I mean, at the beginning of this journey Ben didn't qualify for surgery at all, there was too much cancer and now only 6 months after being told that devastating news we are being faced with these next steps. We are nervous but we are hopeful! This does, however, come with a lot of anxiety and a lot of unknowns. This whole procedure is very aggressive and really our only next option. We've been told that if cancer does return to his liver that they cannot perform another surgery. Letting all of this information sink in today has been a bit challenging for me. I'm not sure what I was anticipating... I guess you want to hear the words "lets do surgery and cure you", but of course it's not that easy. We have a long road ahead of us yet. Months of surgeries and appointments. One thing is for sure, God has brought us this far. 6 months ago being told my husband had 2-3 years to live with no chance for surgery, and now planning this surgery is surreal. And totally God's doing. I don't doubt that for one second. We continue on our faith journey with God and pray that God lays his hands on Ben and heals him. We pray all of this is successful and our God continues to help us through this. We don't know what the next few months will look like but I am certainly glad to have God on our side, comforting us and with us through it all.  

We are prepared to enjoy this coming week at Disney with our girls and our parents where we can laugh and have fun and enjoy the time together before diving into these next steps. I continue to be overwhelmed and thankful for this trip. It certainly comes at a great time for us.

As always, we continue to ask for prayer for Ben. As mentioned many times in this blog, we know what the power of prayer can do and we continue to pray hard that Ben can continue on with life healthy, happy, with his two beautiful baby girls and watch him rise above and beat this with the power and love of our God.