Yesterday I had my first surgery. It was originally suppose to be at 8am, but was moved to 11:20. I am all right with that since I would have had to get up at 4:45am to start getting ready. I had to take my medication by 5am, and then not have anything to drink from 5 to 8am. Moving it till 11:20 allowed me to drink and take my medication at 8am instead. Once I arrived I went through registration and sat in a room with other people. Some people are super chatty and want to discuss what type of surgeries they are having or what they are going through. At 11:00am someone came and told me that someone would come within 5 or 10 minutes to bring me for surgery. The person did not show up till close to 11:45. The surgery was over quickly as I was put to sleep and then I woke up. The doctor came by and told me that everything looked good, which indicates that it has not spread. While I was under, they also checked out my stomach and he told me the size of the cancer was approximately the size of a golf ball, but it had not grown through to the other side of the stomach. He said he will call me before the next surgery and that we would be good to go next week. It was fun chatting with the nurses in the PACU and during the recovery. I was suppose to be in recovery for 90 minutes before they released me. I got out a bit earlier than anticipated as I was recovering well, but I had to wait for Mel to come pick me up. They took me out in a wheelchair because if I fell or something they could be liable.
They plan to remove 75% of my stomach. I will need to reduce the amount of food I eat to 1/4th the amount. Since I tend to eat quite a bit, I will now eat a normal amount of food. I need to also eat more frequently, every couple of hours. When I was working at the office, I would eat approximately every couple of hours and I have been practicing it now since I was diagnosed with cancer. We will see how I adjust to that. Yesterday I was told to remain on a liquid diet which I did. I just ate soup all day and had some water
Today I woke up and I was a bit sore and I was quite light-headed. I had trouble walking to the washroom as I had a bit of vertigo. It went away after a couple of hours and I managed to get through work partially. When my team or people saw me in meetings, most of the time they told me to rest and to leave. I obliged as they could manage without me. I did take calls throughout the day though and helped out where I could.
I received the Covid vaccination today. It is run very well and it goes fairly quickly and have my next appointment on May 29th. I did not realize how sore I was until Melanie drove me to the Covid vaccination as I was not allowed to drive or make any major decisions for 24 hrs. She managed to hit every pothole or defect in the road while we drove. It was rather impressive. It made me quite aware of how my core still needs to heal.
Next week I have the big surgery at 8am on Tuesday, and I will be admitted to the hospital. Hopefully I can get released in a couple of days, but I think it will depend on whether I can keep food down after my stomach is stitched back together. It should be fun. In one week the cancer should all be removed from my body and then I just go through 4 more rounds of chemo over 8 weeks to kill any potential residual cancer cells in my body. Hopefully my recovery is just a week or two.
Quoc Hao