No surgery for my Mom's oc

[Alisa42]

My young 61 year Mom was diagnosed with OC stage 4, 3 weeks ago.  Had standard symptoms for 3 months.  Yesterday she had her "debulking" surgery.  Dr. came out after 2hrs and said that there was much more cancer than they expected; diagram, ovaries colon ect---a coloscomy would of been necessary.  The team of Dr's stepped back for a moment and decided that the surgery would of been too much and therefore took a fist of cancer, stiched her up and scheduled chemo in days.  Their reasons were in hopes to shrink the tumors and hopefully attempt to do the debulking in 2 months.  Has anyone heard of this?  Does anyone know of someone who has had any success with this option?  

[crecco]

I have to agree that it sounds like a smart choice for your mom. I too was dx stage IV but had chemo first to shrink and get rid of as much cancer as possible before surgery. I had 8 rounds of carbo/taxol then debulking surgery. By then the only visible cancer was a small spot on my diaphram. There were also a few small spots in my liver which they took care of later. So keep your hopes up!
Love Chris

[crecco]

I have to agree that it sounds like a smart choice for your mom. I too was dx stage IV but had chemo first to shrink and get rid of as much cancer as possible before surgery. I had 8 rounds of carbo/taxol then debulking surgery. By then the only visible cancer was a small spot on my diaphram. There were also a few small spots in my liver which they took care of later. So keep your hopes up!
Love Chris

[vegas2cr]

Last April under exploratory surgery there was so much cancer that they as you say grabbed a fist ful and closed me back up... I have stage IV. Had 6 rounds of chemo and then my debulking surgery in Sept.  Almost all of the wrap arounds were gone from the chemo making my surgery much better for the gyno/oncologist to do the last surgery...

Sounds like a smart wise choice for your mom

[PinkTissue]

My mum is 62. She got the same problem - too much cancer to be debulked - liver, spleen, colon, diaphragm and the entire stomach. She was asked to go for 3 chemo sessions to shrink the tumors. By the 2nd chemo session, half the cancer were gone and rest shrunk. She just had a successful debulking after the 3rd chemo where all the visible cancer were removed. She has recovered from the debulking and is now embarking on the remaining 3 chemo session to kill off microscopic cancer cells left behind.

I believed that the chemo sessions helped my mother a lot as when the doctors finally did the debulking surgery, much of the cancer is gone so whatever is left behind can be removed easily.