| Your Health Matters | spring 2005 |
|
|
 |
A Survivor: One Man’s Story of Recovery and Renewal
“In the good weather, I ride 30 miles on the East Bay Bike Path in Rhode Island about once a week,” he said. Not even a bout with colon cancer six years ago could break his stride, thanks to minimally invasive surgery performed by Paul Ruggieri, MD, at Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River. Pain was found to have a cancerous polyp in his colon after being hospitalized due to a very low red blood cell count. “My primary care physician, Dr. Richard Moore, came into my room and introduced Dr. Ruggieri to me,” Pain said. “Dr. Moore explained that he wanted Dr. Ruggieri to do laparoscopic surgery on me to remove the cancerous portion of my colon.” Pain’s surgery would be one of the first laparoscopic colon resections in Fall River. He had previously read about the procedure and was all for it. “I had been doing minimally invasive procedures, including colon resection, and was happy to hear that Mr. Pain was willing to have laparoscopic surgery,” said Dr. Ruggieri, who had performed the surgery in Nashville, Tennessee, before coming to Charlton in 1999. “Patients experience less pain, can return home more quickly and have fewer complications.”
“By three o’clock, I was sitting up in bed writing a letter to my son, who lives in Illinois,” said Pain, a lifelong resident of Fall River. “I had no discomfort at all. A nurse came in to my room and said, ‘What are you doing? You just had major surgery.’ But I felt fine.” Pain said he never so much as took an aspirin for his postsurgical pain and was home after three days. He never experienced any complications and after six years is cancer free. “I don’t even have any scars from the surgery,” he said. Pain’s surgery was followed by a course of chemotherapy during which he had to conserve his energy. “But as soon as the chemo was over, I was back to riding my bike,” he said. Today the former cartoonist, portrait artist and editorial writer continues to be a strong proponent of minimally invasive surgery. “I would tell anyone that if they have the option to have a laparoscopic procedure, that’s the way to go,” he said. “I am a living testimony that it really works.” For more information on laparoscopic surgical procedures, contact Dr. Ruggieri at 508-676-3411. |
|
|
|
|
