Ron Brunton	
11:20 AM (2 hours ago)

Last Thursday, June 3rd, I was admitted to the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax and in the morning of June 4th I had a tumor removed from my pancreas along with 40-50% of the pancreas and my spleen. The operation was a complete success and they got all the tumor. The surgeon believes the tumor on the pancreas is the kidney tumor I had 8 years ago metastasized, although we won’t know for certain until the biopsy results are in in a few weeks. This is apparently good news since kidney cancer is much less aggressive than pancreatic cancer.

As you might surmise, this was rather major, dramatic, and invasive surgery, and there is a fair bit of pain and there is a significant recover needed. All that said, they sent me home at noon on Tuesday, everything about the surgery and recovery being good. I’m taking some fairly powerful drugs for the pain and they wipe me out rather completely. So lots of sleeping. When I got home on Tuesday I felt so good that I thought I wouldn’t really need the opiate pain drug so I just took some Tylenol. That was a mistake and I had to go into Emergency, fortunately this time close to home, to get the pain meds back in line. Wednesday night and last night were really nice to spend at home, in our own bed, and have a good sleep, albeit one that got interrupted three times for me to get up and take those pain meds.

I was told I can’t lift anything heavier than 10 lbs for the next six weeks, including our small dog, so it’s really fortunate that we don’t have a small dog (or any dog). 

I don’t have much of an appetite yet and the food in the hospital actively discouraged eating. Now that I’m home, I still don’t feel like eating a lot, but at least I can get good tasting (simple) food. And this is improving. I’m eating a little more each day and my digestive system is slowly starting to return to some kind of normal functioning.

Other than being only a few steps away from a vegetable, mentally, I’m feeling very well and I’m completely positive. The tumor was caught when small (1 ¼ inch) and the surgeon used the phrase “we got all of it” on more than one occasion. I also think I got referred to the best surgical team/surgeon for this type of problem (problems with cancer and the pancreas) east of Montreal.

There are some likely complications. Diminished pancreatic function means that, at least for some initial period, I’m going to have to be conscious of blood sugar levels and I may not digest food as well. While in hospital my blood sugar was regularly checked and I gather was OK since nothing was said. I’ll talk about this with my family doctor next Friday when I get the staples removed. Loss of the spleen means I’m at greater risk of some types of infection, so I need so supplemental vaccines. I got my first dose prior to leaving the hospital and I’m supposed to get my next dose a few weeks after my second COVID shot.

I sure do get tired rather quickly.

Cheers