There was probaby some serious esophageal cancer involved.
Not if you're talking about my colleague.
Due to a blood clot, they said, 2/3's of his small intestine was necrosified (if that's a word - for the non-medical among us, me included, basically his small intestine was dead).
They removed all that, thinking everything was copacetic, and stitched him up - kept shoving antibiotics in him as he had had an infection. And they kept stuffing him with the stuff you pump into a feeding tube. They had to do a trach at one point because, well, I guess he couldn't breathe.
A week later, they couldn't figure out why he was losing weight and did more surgery.
Apparently the rest of his GI tract was dead as well.
No trace of cancer anywhere, or at least it wasn't mentioned.