Saturday, October 31 2025, Raymond is admitted to VGH for a radical prostatectomy
As I’ve written previously, on Friday, October 31 2025, I was admitted to the Vancouver General Hospital for a radical prostatectomy, in response to my Stage 4 prostate cancer. My prostate would be removed over the course of a 3½ hour surgery.
My friend Susan Walsh drove me to the hospital, leaving at 8:45am, arriving at VGH at 9am, where she dropped me off.
I climbed the stairs on the west side of the Jim Pattison Pavilion, just off Laurel Street, and upon entering the building walked down the long corridor towards the Admitting desk, where a woman behind a glass enclosure told me that my arrival was expected. Next, I was directed to an elevator leading to the third floor, and ushered into a carrel, with curtains on three sides, and given a blue gown to wear, a new, softer gown construction less given to exposing a patient’s body. I then climbed into what I found to be a quite comfy bed, the back of the bed tilted up.
No sooner was I comfy in my bed than a young woman in her 30s approached the carrel, my bed and me, introducing herself as Jen, the lead nurse on my upcoming prostate cancer surgery, that was planned to start 75 minutes hence.
Staring directly at me, Jen said …
“Cholangeo, huh?” ‘Yep’, I replied. “You know, Raymond, every other patient I’ve worked with who had been diagnosed with cholangeo died, yet here you are, looking pretty darn fit, and in good shape and quite ready for your upcoming cancer surgery. Why is it that you are here, lying in your comfortable bed, full of vim and vigour, when all of the other cholangeo patients who suffered from your cholangeo diagnosis are long gone, expiring within weeks or months. Gone. Dead.”
“A miracle,” I said. After which I explained what had occurred in the year of my discontent in being diagnosed and treated for my Hilar cholangeocarinoma.
“Well, I’m glad you’re still with us,” Jen said. “I’ll see you in the operating room in about an hour. I’ll be the one keeping an eye on the doctors to make sure that all goes well. You can count on me.”
An Explanatory Digression
Hilar cholangeocarinoma. A bit of background. On October 7th, 2016 I was diagnosed with Hilar cholangiocarcinoma by Dr. Fergal Donnellan.
Weekly for the next six months I attended at VGH where Dr. Donnellan installed a stent in my bile duct. By Christmas, I was in palliative care at St. John’s Hospice at the University of British Columbia. Apparently, I was a goner, the tests definitive.
Problem was, I felt pretty great (October 2016 was the worst month of pain I had ever experienced), in January 2017 attending the Women’s March — with Gwen Giesbrecht, currently running with COPE for a position on the Vancouver School Board, and longtime DTES community activist Wendy Pedersen, and her then 11-year-old daughter — to protest the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President.
Long story short, my family physician, Dr. Brad Fritz, assigned me to meet with VGH urology specialist and surgeon Dr. Andrzej Buczkowski to review my case.
In early January 2017, Dr. Buczkowski showed me the results of several MRIs, CT scans and PET scans, which showed from the neck down, the lymph nodes in my body were a flaming red, the bile duct cancer having spread throughout my body. Dr. Buczkowski expressed surprise that I looked healthy, and fit, when given the surfeit of tests I had been subjected to for months indicated I should be dead.
Over the course of the next two months, I was tested and re-tested, ending up on an operating table at Vancouver General Hospital at 6am on Friday morning, March 7 2017, where from 6am to 3pm, Dr. Donnellan rooted around in my body looking for the cancer spread — the results of the tests conducted by Dr. Buczkowski indicated that my bile duct cancer had disappeared. At 3pm, I was wheeled to a ward, still fast asleep, and still under the effects of the anaesthetic I had been given.
At 4:30pm, standing at the foot of my bed, Dr. Donnellan voiced what he told me later were the three most difficult words he had ever expressed: “It’s a miracle!” My cancer was gone, there was absolutely no trace of my cancer anywhere, not in my liver, pancreas, gall bladder, lungs, or bile duct. And so it has remained until, and I expect beyond, this day.
My friend Margery Duda, a longtime community pools advocate (whom Kareem Allam must meet), picked me up from the hospital to ferry me home.
I’ll write about the entire journey of my Hilar cholangeocarinoma in days to come.
Jen and I spoke for about 10 minutes, after which she departed, where upon three of her nurse colleagues who would be attending at my surgery approached my carrel to introduce themselves. Next up, my surgeon, a cheerful Dr. Miles Mannas and three of his urologist colleagues dropped by my carrel, as well as two oncologists who had been supervising my case, three anesthesiologists and the two doctors who would be conducting my upcoming, precise, robotic surgery.
At 10:25am I was wheeled into the operating room for my radical prostatectomy that, unlike the “photo” above (created with Gemini AI), appeared to be the size of a football field. I was approached by the lead anesthesiologist, with whom I had met previously, in preparation for my prostate cancer surgery. “I am going to apply the anesthetic now,” he said. And I was out like a light.
The surgery lasted until late afternoon, after which I was wheeled to a recovery ward, where I was attended to for the next 12 hours by an absolutely tremendous nurse — with a wry and wicked sense of humour — and very well cared for.
Alasdair and Fergus walking down Waterloo Street towards Almond Park
At 10am on Saturday morning, my friend Alasdair and his son Fergus (about whom I wrote on Tuesday) arrived to pick me up and take me home, where I remained bed-ridden for the next three months, continuing the worst part of my recovery through early June, cared for by Nick Ellan, Alasdair, his bride Meaghan (and their two children, Fergus and Elliott), my neighbours Heather, Judi, Kevin and Laurie — and all other members of my housing co-op, for that matter, about which circumstance, I will write several times over the coming weeks and months — my good friend Kelly Ryan, and the dog we share, Teague the schnauzer wonder dog.
Teague the schnauzer wonder dog, my constant and much loved companion
