3 Weeks Post Surgery

​It’s been 3 weeks since surgery, 2 weeks home. Today we met with the oncologist to review pathology from the surgery and get the details on the rest of treatment.  

The surgeon removes 17 lymph nodes around stomach area (1/2 stomach also removed), 1 lymph node from the top of esophagus (removed 2/3rds of esophagus), and 19 lymph nodes from the bottom of esophagus where the tumor was, and ALL of these had no cancer.  Basically, with the chemo and the surgery, which checked all the margins, he has no cancer.  

With that said, he still gets to do 4 more rounds of chemo starting 3 weeks from now so just after Thanksgiving.  He’ll have a week off at Christmas.  Projected dates, not yet in the calendar are; round 1 December 2, round 2 December 16, round 3 December 30, and final round 4 January 13.


Side note # 1: Willie’s hair is starting to grow back pretty well 👇🏻. 




Side note #2 - Our current oncologist Ensi Voshtina is pregnant and due date 1/4/2026. It’s her first baby, a boy!  So we will get handed off to new oncologist, Dr. Anthony Naquin in December.  


Side note #3:  Willie is eating soft foods now and still in feeding pump.  We meet with the surgeon tomorrow so hopefully have a better timeline on when he can be done with the feeding tube altogether.  It might be good to have it during chemo, but not sure how long they can stay in. He gets about 1600 calories a day though the tube as we have it set on 50 ml hour (that’s all he will tolerate whichbisb1.5 oz) and by mouth he is taking in about 500 calories.  He doesn’t really drink the protein drinks now or during chemo.  But he does like eggs, cream of wheat (with honey, butter & milk), cottage cheese, creamy soups (clam chowder, cream of celery mushroom and chicken, chicken noodle etc), halibut, canned green beans, fruit cocktail, juice, milk, smoothies, mashed potatoes and gravy, jellos, tapioca and a handful of other things.  I sneak in protein powder where I can.  I’m trying hard tonight fix temping soft food things.  But he can only eat 1/2 c per meal still and eats slowly due to his modified stomach.  He doesnt have any trouble swallowing which is good.  All other functions are working and he doesn’t have a lot of pain anymore.  Just taking Tylenol as needed.  He’s still taking it pretty easy on walking around.  We’ll know more tomorrow and I will fill you in.  

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