Glenn--My heart sincerely breaks into a thousand pieces for you and your family. Your strength, courage, and stamina in the face of such unrelenting adversity is both amazing and admirable. I hope that your wife is comfortable and that you and your daughter are able to communicate as you go through ...

I hope you keep us updated on how your reversal goes...I only have a projected date in my mind for when my takedown *should* be (according to me, anyhow), but I'm still looking forward to it as one of my milestones on this long, long march NEDsylvania.

Question for my fellow rectal cancer compadres: I had my lapro-LAR with j-pouch a little over two weeks ago and have been experiencing pain around my bottom (ok, ANUS) for about the last week or so. When I realized it was getting worse instead of better, my surgeon ordered a CT scan, which turned up...

The good news gets better: pathology found no signs of carcinoma or adenoma in the tissue removed AND, of the 11 nodes they took out, none were positive! Incredible! I know chemorads are really tough on some people, but without it, my results and prognosis would have been *much* different. All the b...

The one thing I wish I had after my recent LAR--eye shades/a sleep mask! They wake you up at all hours to take vitals, draw blood, administer meds and of course have to turn on all the lights to do so (or maybe it was just my grumpy night nurse?), so the more of that you can sleep through, the better!

Home at last, home at last...Thank god almighty, I am home at LAST! Other than a few minor speed bumps and the nightmarish hell that is the recovery room, everything went great! Path report should be back later this week, but they did say that the chemorads had ground the tumor down to barely a nub ...

Just wanted to touch base with all you guys and let you know that I'm going in for my LAR surgery on Friday. I've had a CTVP and ultrasound since finishing chemorads earlier last month and both scans show *considerable* tumor & node shrinkage. Wish me luck and please leave any post-surgery/ileos...

I was curious as to if anyone knows the rationale behind grouping colon and rectal cancers under one category. From what I can tell, the treatments for the two cancers are so different (no radiation or neoadjuvant treatment for colon cancer) that it seems like the two should be separated. I might ju...

Ah yes the ostomy...How long do you usually uave it (assuming it's temporary). Do they usually do the takedown after chemo is over?

When it comes to the radiation (and chemo) treatment, I've been pretty lucky to have had only very minor side effects. No burns, mouth sores, or hand/foot syndrome thus far, just some GI stuff and issues with my lady business. So, a question about radiation--when do the worst of the worst side effec...

Heya--I'm a rectal cancer newbie that has 23 of 31 radiation (avec Xeloda) treatments under my belt and just got a surgery date of 3/28. I was wondering: for those of you who have already walked the chemoradiation/surgery/IV chemo path, what do you wish you had known when you were first diagnosed? A...