breast, testicular, and ovarian. They were all both empathetic and sympathetic, having traveled their own personal journeys.
And here’s one more example of my being extremely lucky. My Whipple surgery was done in 2015 and not in 1965. Why does that matter? The fatality rate from Whipple surgery has fallen dramatically over the time since Dr. Alan Whipple devised the surgical procedure that bears his name in the 1930s, as well as over the last several decades. According to an article in Medical News Today:
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Whipple procedure carried a high risk, with mortality rates as high as 25 percent. This death rate was due to the complexity of the surgery, as well as the poor health of the recipients. Now, the procedure is much safer, with mortality rates of around 2-3 percent. 3
Thus, in the 1960s and 1970s, one-quarter of the people did not survive the Whipple surgery itself!!! Distressing.