Thursday, November 29, 2012

FIVE YEAR WHIPPLE-VERSARY!

TODAY is THE DAY! It will ALWAYS be a monumental milestone of yet another life-changing experience for me. I am FIVE YEARS post-Whipple procedure today. I am honored and blessed to be able to say that I am a Whipple survivor. While it's not the life I would have chosen for myself (it is a horrendous surgery to have and then live your new life with), but the God who loves me and created me felt me worthy of this endeavor. EVERY DAY is a blessing b/c I get to spend it on this side of eternity living life with my family and friends, watching my kids grow up, parenting them and being a wife to my Handsome Warrior of Marines. I get to have relationships with others and share my experience with those who are going through colon or Whipple surgery. I enjoy living the life God has given me and doing it ALL for His glory. I am one BLESSED woman! ♥

The Whipple Procedure (aka pancreaticoduodenectomy) is the worst surgery to ever have (even worse than something like open-heart) and is most commonly given to people who have pancreatic cancer. It used to have a very low survival rate...most people would end up dying from the procedure or complications from the surgery. I am blessed to not have had pancreatic cancer & thankful that I had a doctor who was able to be proactive so that I'm still here today. In my case, I had a "Classic Whipple" and lost 5% of my stomach (which included my pyloric valve), my entire duodenum (1st 12-18 inches of your small intestines which absorbs most of the vitamins and nutrients your body needs), my gall bladder (the gall bladder duct plugs into the duodenum and if they just hooked the gall bladder straight back to my small intestines, I'd be back in 6-12 months to have it removed anyway because of chronic gall stones), my pancreatic duct (where the pancreas plugs into the duodenum), and the tip of my pancreas (because it had become hardened or something like that because I'd evidently been having attacks of pancreatitis but didn't know it).  Then they cut a hole in the pancreas so they can pull what's left of the small intestine through it so it can still do it's job. They then hook up what's left of the small intestines to the remainder of the stomach, and BAM, there you go...you get a new life which a whole new learning curve and finding the new normal in life which often changes. Right there, that's at least 6 surgeries right there plus a lot of other things that have to do with rerouting blood vessels and all kinds of crazy things like that. (The operation report is like SEVEN pages long.) THEN you get to spend a day or so in ICU so they can closely monitor you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you want to see more info and get a real education on the GI system and anatomy, you can check out the following links:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancreaticoduodenectomywww.surgery.usc.edu/divisions/tumor/pancreasdiseases/web%20pages/pancreas%20resection/whipple%20operation.html
www.pancan.org/section_facing_pancreatic_cancer/learn_about_pan_cancer/treatment/surgery/Whipple_procedure.php


I lost 20lbs in less than a month when I didn't have the 20lbs to lose. Thankfully, I never went below 100lbs...just barely hung on b/c that would have created a whole bunch of new issues. Every day was a struggle, but I was able to keep my focus on Christ, and He enabled me to get through each moment as it came and has used it to make me who I am.