I had a tumor in about the same spot. Even though my tumor was technically in the distal sigmoid, I was treated as rectal, so I had chemoradiation before surgery. I lost my sigmoid and about half my rectum to the surgery. No stoma, though I was prepped for one. I’m 6 months post surgery now, and I’m...
I don’t have a link to the information, but my oncologist showed me some study on his computer that had line graphs that were virtually identical for 5FU alone vs FOLFOX. He then showed me another study that found that 3 months of treatment was as effective as 6. I wish I could remember in greater d...
Xeloda dosage is calculated according to your body composition, at least initially. I was taking 5000 mg a day for adjuvant. Less while doing the chemoradiation. 3600 mg if memory serves me here. One doctor put it like this: chemo is more like a dial than an on / off switch. As for side effects, I h...
You can live a pretty normal life on Xeloda. It’s hard to make a blanket statement because everyone has different reactions to these drugs, and without pulling any punches, these drugs are nasty. That said, if you’re on Xeloda, you take it twice a day after food. I didn’t have any visible side effec...
I was 2A. My oncologist originally said no chemo, but it was up to me. He thought that FOLFOX was overkill for my situation, so he recommended 3 months of Capecitabine (Xeloda) so that’s what I did. Seems like a pretty reasonable compromise. The data showed similar results. The pills weren’t fun, bu...
I had 2 suspicious nodes that turned out not to be cancerous. You won’t know for sure until they take them out. So, I walked around thinking I was 3B for all those months, but it turned out I was 2A. I have my 6 month scan coming up in a few weeks. It’s a long road for sure. I also felt physically f...
I have a 2mm “hypodensity” on my liver that the CT said was too small to classify, so I had an MRI and it’s just a cyst. Actually there are 3 of them that the MRI picked up. I also have a cyst on my right kidney. None are concerning to my doctors. Apparently it’s very common. I hope you have good ne...
I was also abroad when diagnosed. I was working on a ship and we were in Spain at the time. I had my colonoscopy and biopsy done there. I was sent back home to Canada, but I had no health insurance because I was out of my province for too long, and they figured it out. Luckily my company’s insurance...
I can relate to the desire to get the cancer out of you ASAP. When mine was found, I wondered why they didn’t keep me in the hospital and take it out that day. I was abroad in Europe, so my employer had to get me back home, which took several days, and then the whole process of getting a doctor, a s...
I’m by no means qualified to comment on medical issues, but your CT scan report looks pretty encouraging to me. My hospital has two MRI machines. One you go in feet first, and the other is head first. Neither were that bad. I’m pretty tall though, so my head wasn’t all the way inside on either machi...
Turned out to be a herniated disc. I’m doing physio for it. I just had a follow up with my surgeon. He explained in greater detail what he did during the surgery. He told me he removed my entire sigmoid and explained about the blood supply. It all seemed to make sense to me, though from what I’ve re...