Hello Adele,
Not sure I understand how a standard Whipple procedure is "a modified version" but in my case Dr Soares just informed me Tuesday that in addition to gall bladder removal, partial stomach and partial pancreas removal and re wired digestive tract that he had to remove 7 of my 42 lymph nodes because they were cancerous. Which makes me Stage III.

Like I said before Dr Soares did a fantastic job of performing the the surgery: picture perfect!

Unlike my hospital roommate who at 36 years old, after Whipple, had to return to the hospital twice in extreme pain due to leaking rewired digestive connections that became infected. His surgeon had to open him up again because of the pus in his body cavities.

I was in the hospital over a month because I could not keep down solid foods without puking and was on a TPN nutrition bag for awhile: he came back twice on the same floor and finally was my roommate again 2 days before my discharge. So it was my stomach's inability to quickly recover after surgery and NOT the problems of messy surgery.

So... my insight post surgery is to go VERY slow with the liquid diet and don't over hydrate with a lot of liquids (you feel like you could drink tons of water, milkshakes ect) Once solid foods are introduced: only eat small portion (like I had a full breakfast eggs turkey sausage and later for lunch meatloaf mashed potatoes) and then puked it all up by 6PM and had to go BACK to nose tube and stomach pump.

Slow is better...still working with nutritionist to sort out my new post surgery diet to gain strength for 3 more months of chemo.
Best of luck and let me know if I can help with any more questions!!!
Cyrus