Hi there, Lori,
I’m so glad your surgery went so well. I’ve noticed on this forum that people talked about eating so many foods, and being prepared for the surgery, but I’m struggling to see how they did it. My husband’s tumor is in his lower third of his esophagus, and after the 28 days of radiation it is pretty fried. He still cannot swallow without extreme pain. He barely can swallow saliva. He cannot even have a sip of water. He has had nothing by mouth for the past five weeks now. He is feeding himself and giving hydration purely by his PEG tube. He manages it all himself now, which is great. However, we have had a kink in our plans for surgery. The stress echocardiogram showed that he has many probable blockages in his heart. If we do an angiogram and proceed with stents, he will have to go on blood thinners, which would be detrimental to stop if you were to stop in for a surgery like the esophagectomy. Extremely high risk either way. The cardiologist wants to wait until the surgeon is aware of his report. We will speak to the UCLA surgeon on Thursday. We could proceed to fix his heart, whether it needs stents or bypass surgery. But this may eliminate the esophagectomy. At least at this time. It would be one thing, if my husband could swallow and eat food and continuous somewhat normal life. But this year threw a kink in it.
As far as gaining his strength back for surgery, he has no stamina, but he’s trying to gain it a little bit. We are not sure if it’s his normal weakness after chemo and radiation or is his heart unable to stand any type of exercise. As far as we know, he did not have any heart issues prior to this. we are questioning whether it’s the chemo or radiation that may have damaged his heart. He is trying to use weight bands to gain some tone and his muscles of his arms and he can tolerate 15 minutes of that per day right now. He’s only 57 years old! We have some major choices to make I guess in the near future. We are praying for the Lord‘s healing and strength and wisdom at this time.