@jimcaskowski Carol, " Hijacked by this disease " is exactly what it does. My husband was diagnosed in July 2024 as Stage 4. We didn't do much of anything for over a year except Scans and blood work and visits to the Oncologist and wonder how much time we had. Finally, this past winter we took two trips to the Caribbean with our son and is family . The first trip was wonderful and my husband did really well. The second trip was much harder on my husband but on his good days, we made some wonderful memories with our Grandchildren. My husband started to decline on this trip but he said it was the best thing we could have done ! My husband is now on Hospice and in the final stage of this horrible disease. My only regret through all of this is that I wish we had not worried so much about the scans and the bloodwork and that we took more trips with our Family and just had fun !

The surgery itself was tough on my husband physically as he had a lot of complications for 6 months after the surgery. He had two large abscesses that landed him back in the hospital and he had to have drains for 6 months. He had a staff infection that also put him back in the hospital and pneumonia that followed with a collapsed lung. He was a big strong man before all of this but he never got his strength back. I have to say though , we went to University of Penn in Phila and the Staff there were absolutely wonderful and could not have done more to help my husband. Very compassionate and caring .