The operation is so terrifying some call it MOAS: the Mother of All Surgeries. It can take 16 hours. The risk of complications is high. And after 30 years of research, doctors are still arguing about how well it works.
But as Stephen Phillips shimmied himself onto the operating table one recent morning, he was almost relieved. He’d spent five months desperately trying to arrange this surgery in the hope that it would beat back his rare cancer of the appendix.
Now, as the surgeon scrubbed in, Phillips was ready — or as ready as one can be — to have his innards scraped with electrified wires and sluiced with hot poison.
“It’s been referred to as barbaric. It’s been referred to as having up to 10 abdominal surgeries at once. It’s not for the faint of heart,” he’d said a few weeks earlier. He was nervous, but also eager. “It’s like gearing up for the Stanley Cup championship and the Super Bowl, all rolled into one,” he said. “Minus the hotdogs and the beer.”
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