Tumour attack

The minute a tumour is found, you and the doctors want to know if the primary (first) tumour is the only tumour, or if it has set up other tumours around the body. The process of the first tumour releasing cancer cells and setting up shop in other organs is called metastisis.

My tumour has not done that (that we know of from the CT and MRI). What my greedy tumour is doing is known as 'invasion'. Invasion is where a tumour physically grows into other organs and tissues. My tumour started inside the tunnel of the sigmoid colon and then invaded through the wall of the sigmoid and then stretched out and invaded the outside of the rectum. My tumour is also thinking about invading my right seminal vesicle but for now it's just touching it and hasn't broken through.

 My schematic showing the sigmoid and greedy tumour

My tumour was able to invade my rectum because of my particular anatomy. Parts of my sigmoid colon hang down into the pelvic cavity - lower than other people's. For most of the people reading this, their sigmoid stays in the abdominal cavity.

Research shows that the best way to treat T4 tumours that have invaded the rectum is to zap them with radiation and treat my body with chemotherapy. Doctors call this preoperative chemoradiation therapy.

If the surgeons were to operate now, they would be left wondering if they had removed all of the tumour. Removing all of the tumour is important because just a few missed cells can form another tumour.

My tumour is only one sprawling town, but every house (cell) needs to be removed