My oncologist was of the totally opposite opinion than yours. Now, I had a full thickness excision which is by far better than a regular biopsy but falls short of the LAR. My pathology report from that came back as totally NEGATIVE. Again, my situation was different but let me fill you in on the sto...

BTW....4.5 cm is NOT considered super low.

Patients with 2-3 cm ARE considered low.

I had a local excision in 2007 after a complete clinical response to chemoradiation. I'm not sure what 'side effects' your doctor is talking about. Yes, I had a slight amount of pain (mine was due to the fact that the instruments were pushed against my tailbone for the duration of the surgery and I ...

I"m not surprised about the HRT but I am surprised that your GYN won't Rx some vaginal estrogen cream. Yes, it does contain hormones, however, the levels your body absorbs via the vaginal route are SO small that most doctors don't consider it to be 'dangerous' to a female unless you have a STRO...

Of course it is a good sign that chemo and the radiation (no matter how short the course....that particular treatment works well on nodes) helped clean up nodes/shrink her tumor. What you don't know is exactly the extent of shrinkage. Your signature shows a T3 prior to treatment and a T2 after. So y...

Please, understand that your mother is NOT 'downstaged'. True 'downstaging' happens very rarely and only happens when a mistake or some other such error was made in the initial staging. When a patient's tumor responds to ANY type of treatment....be that chemo, radiation, a combination of both, immun...

I'm 12+ years out from my diagnosis and still have mine done (trying to schedule now) by my surgeon. IF something should be there, I want my surgeon to be the one that found it, knows precisely where it is, what it looks like, etc. Sometimes it is a little more difficult to schedule but heck, for me...

Please don't take this as being offensive but one thing that seems to be coming through loud and clear in your posts is that you seem to not believe that a polyp can't just be benign....no cancer in situ, NO level of dysplasia, no cancer. Please understand that there are people everyday who have pol...

If it would make you feel better, go back and see the GI or consult with another doc. If you have a GP whom you trust, then talk to him/her. However, I do think that you need to be prepared that maybe you just have a benign polyp. Back in 2008, I was told that I had a polyp removed during my first s...

At least here in the US, it is by prescription only. Can you just call the GYN's office and see if he/she will send a script in before your appt.?

Please...do NOT wait on the Premarin cream. Using the dilators without that 'help' isn't going to be effective. You NEED to get either Premarin or another similar type of cream. I seriously cannot stress that enough.
Please don't wait!

dysplasia means that there are abnormal cells there. Your pathology report didn't mention anything because there was NOTHING there to mention. Polyps start as benign growths. Some turn cancerous, some never will. In your case, the polyp that they found had NOT started the process (if it ever was goi...

PRS, SKB, Weisssoccermom, and other W&W-ers: Food/nutrition: Did you change your nutrition when you decided to do W&W? Add supplements? No to the first question. I don't drink.....never really did except LONG LONG ago in college. I don't smoke....never did that either. Yes, I still love my r...

I can't speak to the W & W approach but you might want to look at: Loyola University and University of Chicago. Both facilities utilize the TEM approach and you might find a surgeon there who is more amenable to that particular avenue....a TEM, chemo with meticulous follow up. I would suggest go...

I basically had the same as W & W (except my 'biopsy' was a full thickness excision) and I only had a CT chest/abdomen/pelvis every 6 months. I may be cynical here, but I highly doubt that you would get your insurance company to pay for an MRI every 3 months. Like the newer W&W, my protocol ...