February 4, 2011

Greedy tumour be my friend

My Mini Rave in Isolation (MRI) revealed that the tumour has in fact breached the wall of the sigmoid colon and attached itself to the external wall of the rectum.

Bugger.

Not the best outcome, but still a curable cancer. I want to make that point again: this is still a curable cancer.

So how does this change the game plan?

  • My tumour can now be classed as a T4 tumour, but the actual stage of my cancer depends on analysis after surgery
  • My cancer will now be medically treated as rectal cancer, even though the tumour is in the sigmoid colon
  • I will need about five weeks of chemotherapy and radiation therapy before surgery
  • The surgery will now involve removing part of my rectum too
  • The operation will be open surgery and not laparascopic
  • I will have a temporary stoma and ileostomy bag for three months after surgery (can I have a round of applause for admitting that in such a public forum?)


The tumour won't stop until it has hold of all the fun things around it



6 comments:

  1. This is a curable cancer and you are going into battle with lots of support behind you. I know you can do this. Remember, you are strong!

    I realize everyone's situation is different, but here's one example. My friend's dad got a permanent colostomy about 10 years ago and said he was able to continue swimming and doing whatever he normally did (after some readjustment, I'm sure).

    Now I'm going to mentally zap your tumor cells.

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  2. Yep, you can swim, jog, dance and do sexy time with a bag. They are clean, safe, small and concealed.

    I do love showing people my hirsute torso while strutting around without a shirt on, so that seems like the only major thing that would change.

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  3. Can you grow fur over the bag? How about we all start saving up our body hair to make a bag-merkin. Hot.

    Sending positive energy and thoughts and wobby wobby your way bro.

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  4. OH! My favorite thing to do is open the bag for fart air! It smells WAY worse than the poo. Sharing.

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  5. For context, Missi, the provider of the comment above, is an oncology nurse in the US.

    Thanks for the detail Miss.

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  6. Lovely ol' oma has a bag :). She sometimes smells a lil bit funny at certain times. Ant

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