A Brief Lesson About Liver Resection

Now that I've been cleared to have my liver resected, I've started doing some research about the surgery itself. Here are a few interesting tidbits that I've come across (I have not verified all of these so they may or may not be true - if I find out that any are wrong, I will post a correction):

Typically, it takes 5 to 6 weeks to recover completely from the surgery.

It only takes 6 to 8 weeks for you liver to regenerate to its pre-operative size!

The median number of days patients are hospitalized post-surgery is 6.

If they remove the right lobe of the liver (as they are doing in my case), they also remove the gall bladder since it is attached to the right lobe. - I'm particularly excited about this one because I already know that I have gall stones, but they are currently inactive; however, with my family history of horrible gall bladder problems, I would rather they just take it out!

They can remove up to 70% of your liver and it can still perform the normal functions. (I've also seen 60% and 75%, but 70% seems to be the most common.)

My surgery is scheduled for July 10th. They will be removing the entire right lobe of my liver and a small portion of the left. I may have my colon re-resected at the same time. On the last CT scan there was a spot at the operative site. I can't get an appointment with my original surgeon Dr C until July 7. I'm going to discuss it with Dr W on Monday. After recovering from the resection, I will likely go back to chemo for 3 to 6 months to make sure that any rogue cancer cells are destroyed. I'll also discuss that with Dr W on Monday.