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I had
a flexi sig on Monday 24th January 2005 and got talking to the
gastroenterologist who was performing the scope. He was telling me
he was concerned that patients between the ages 20 and 40 were not
getting their duodenums checked for polyps. This concerned him as
surgery to remove the duodenum is dangerous. Let me fill you in on
my experience.
In February 2000, my surgeon sent me to have a
gastroscope. The scope found lots of polyps and he warned me that I
faced surgery known as the Whipple. In itself, this surgery is
dangerous, however, I am susceptible to desmoids and there was a
huge chance that a desmoid would grow around the mesenteric artery.
As you can imagine, this news scared the daylights out of me.
But,
my surgeon put me in the hands of a very competent
gastroenterologist and over the next six months he was able to laser
the polyps back to an acceptable size.
This is the same
gastroenterologist who expressed concern to me on Monday regarding
other sufferers of polyps. Please, do yourselves and your families
a favour and get your duodenum checked out. Hopefully, you, like me
will put off such surgery.
I know that there is a strong
chance I will have to face such surgery in the future, but I feel I
will be better prepared for it.
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Well,
since I've started, I may as well continue.
About 4
years after I moved to Perth, my brother went in to have surgery.
All I was told by my loving family was that they had found some
cancer. I didn't think a lot more about it, but made sure I was in
touch most days.
After his surgery, I was told that Peter
went into a coma and they were trying to figure out why. After 3
weeks, I got the phone call in the early hours of the morning to say
that Peter had lost his fight for life. I'd already arranged a
flight for that day, but unfortunately I was a little too late.
In
1992, I had no idea that we could get polyps in the duodenum, nor
that they could become cancerous in the same manner that the colon
polyps can. So, as far as I was aware, they had missed some polyps
in the rest of Pete's intestines and whatever renal passage was
left. And, according to the information I was given at the time, it
was Pete's desmoid that caused most of the problems, finally
starving him to death (not my words).
I believed this for 6
years because the person who told me this had proven themselves to
be truthful throughout my life.
In 1998, I finally learned
the truth behind Pete's death. His desmoid, although causing him
severe problems, was not the cause of his death. It was duodenal
cancer. Not the other end, but that area just below the stomach.
Family
can do a lot of damage in the belief that they are protecting other
members. I am lucky that my surgeon convinced me to have a
gastroscopy in February 2000, not even 2 years after Peter's death.
For, once cancer reaches the duodenum, there's not a lot that can be
done.
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