Surgery

There are three main treatments for cancer and these are surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Which you have depends on many things, the particularly the type of disease you have, where in your body it is situated, what the cancer cells look like when examined microscopically and whether it has spread to other parts of your body.
 
In their interviews teenagers whose treatment included surgery talk about why they needed to have their surgery; their feelings and concerns before surgery; and how they felt whilst recovering from their surgery.
 
For most of the young people this was the first time they had been in hospital or had had surgery, so needless to say they found the whole experience quite scary. However, it helped that their parents were often able to stay with them in the hospital and visits from friends and family also provided a welcome distraction.
 
The diagnosis of cancer is often made by taking a surgical biopsy or sample of the tumour. But surgery is often also the first and main treatment or is used after courses of chemotherapy have been used to shrink the tumour. Therefore your surgeon, when he/she initially operates on you it just to remove a little bit of the tumour so as to be able to test it to see if it is cancerous, and if it is - exactly how cancerous it is. Or it may be to try and remove the whole tumour very first time around.

Her operation was successful in completely removing her tumour. She knew that without the operation she would have died.

The surgeon operated to take sample because it was not possible to remove the whole tumour.

Normally when you are going to have a general anaesthetic (fully asleep) for your operation, you are not allowed to eat or drink for around 12 hours before the op. The reason is so that your stomach is empty at the time of your operation, and should you be sick, then there is nothing for you to sick up. Many of the teenagers interviewed said that they were particularly worried about three things - having the general anaesthetic, the pain of the operation and finally the possibility of scarring of your surgical wound. Many found that talking to the surgeon before the operation was very reassuring. But occasionally the information that was given to you about the possible surgical complications seemed unnecessarily detailed and alarming! But, in general, most of you were really impressed by your surgeon’s skills.

Describes being scared before the operation on her neck and waking up to find she had a feeding tube and catheter.

(See 'What makes a good doctor').

She felt terrified when told by junior doctors about possible complications of her surgery and regrets that she did not ask to speak to the surgeon.

Young people with brain tumours sometimes had to have a surgical operation to have a catheter called a ’shunt’ put into the central area of their brains called the ventricles which are normally filled with cerebral spinal fluid in order to drain the fluid off to prevent this fluid building up in pressure. Subsequently, very occasionally this shunt can become blocked and emergency surgery is necessary but mainly they work well and can often be removed after a period of time.

His shunt blocked and he slipped into unconsciousness - which neither his mother nor his GP recognised as a complication to do with his shunt. He had to have the shunt removed as an emergency procedure.

Was wary when he had his first shunt put in but now feels more confident that he can live normally.

Surgery for cancer is nearly always carefully planned ahead of time, but just sometimes there is an urgent need to operate quickly. Also on a few occasions a patient will think that they are going in for investigations or relatively minor surgery but then, during the operation the form of surgery has to change because of what is discovered during the operation itself.

Thought that she was having an ovarian cyst removed. Her mother had to sign permission for the surgeon to remove both ovaries when they discovered cancer.

When young people came round after surgery, they usually found themselves back on the ward where they were before the operation, but one or two found themselves in a ’high dependency unit’ when they became conscious again. These units are specialist units with more intensive nursing care. After having an operation it is quite common to had what is know as a ’drain’ in your surgical wound - to help drain off blood or fluid. These can be quite uncomfortable. 
 
Nowadays it is not uncommon for people recovering from surgery to be given hand-held pumps with which they can administer themselves with morphine to counteract any pain that they may get. It is also notable that for the first couple of days after an operation most people feel quite woozy from the anaesthetic and painkillers and you can find it hard to remember this period clearly.

Talks about how he felt after major surgery on his lungs.

Has had several operations and now knows she needs anti-sickness tablets after a general anaesthetic.

As already mentioned - during your operation the surgeon frequently takes samples for further examinations, and it can be really quite anxious waiting for the results of these tests to come back as it may take several days. 
 
There are forms of cancer which require very major surgery. One such cancer is tumours affecting your bones. Sometimes false bones (prostheses) can be used to replace a bone containing a tumour that has had to be removed. Very occasionally a limb has to be amputated in part or as a whole. After the surgery an artificial limb can then be fitted.
 
What can be amazing is how quickly your body can recover from surgery. Your strength can return and your scars can heal surprisingly quickly. However, a few teenagers may be left with physical scars that it can take some years to come to terms with (see ’Body image during and after cancer’).

Last reviewed April 2010.

Last updated April 2010.