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From left, Kimberly Lamendola, Wendy Finnegan and Ciaran McNamee gather in Rebecca Dolloff’s room as she takes her first drink in nine months.
By all appearances, it was an ordinary cup of tea in a Styrofoam cup. But for Rebecca Dolloff, it was the first drink she had taken in more than nine months.
After being diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the fall of 2009, Dolloff underwent chemotherapy and radiation, followed by a surgery at a hospital near her home in Boothbay, Maine, in the spring. But, after a series of surgeries proved unsuccessful in reconstructing her esophagus, Dolloff was transferred to BWH and immediately placed in the care of Ciaran McNamee, MD, of Thoracic Surgery.
“Our first priority was to correct the previous attempts to connect Rebecca’s esophagus to her stomach,” said McNamee. “We performed a highly unusual operation that involved rerouting her esophagus to a subcutaneous site (under the skin) on the front of her chest to allow the infected pleural space (between the lung and chest wall) to heal.” During the months that followed, Dolloff was fed and hydrated by a feeding tube into her small bowel.
“Dr. McNamee believed he could help me, but he told me it was going to be a long road and that I would have to do my part—not eating or drinking—to let my esophagus heal,” Dolloff said. “I was so thirsty, and I love to eat. But when you want to live, you do what they tell you.”
Through the summer and fall, Dolloff watched those around her eat the foods she loves. She missed eating her favorite summer meal of melon, berries and lobster, and decided not to attend Thanksgiving dinner altogether because she didn’t want to smell the aromas of her favorite meal and not be able to eat it.
In February, after Dolloff regained strength, McNamee and his team, along with Joel Goldberg, MD, of General Surgery, performed a second surgery that entailed bringing her small bowel up to the neck in front of her heart to reconstruct the GI tract.
“They put me back together,” said Dolloff, who adds that the most important result of the surgery is the fact that she will once again be able to eat and drink.
On Feb. 10, McNamee, Kimberly Lamendola, a physician assistant in Thoracic Surgery, and Wendy Finnegan, RN, gathered in Dolloff’s room as she took her first drink in nine months, cheering and joking about the merits of caviar vs. pizza for her first meal, which would soon follow.
“Last year, I kept telling myself that I would enjoy all these things next year,” Dolloff said. “Now, I can.”
BWH Bulletin caught this special moment on video.