I don't understand the statements regarding "certainty of side effects". The statement implies that long term irreversible side effects will occur due to adjuvant chemotherapy. And that isn't true...at least not in the majority of patients. Perhaps the statement should be "chance of l...

Hi, I was 37 also when diagnosed 3c. I did Oxy via iv and Xeloda as adjuvant chemo. I do not know if it's better or worse with a port. I did not have much of a problem with the IV. Xeloda did not produce much in the way of negative side effects for me. I can't remember how much I posted directly abo...

Same experience as BB. Nothing to add except that I know they need the tattoos for the radiation techs to properly target the radiation.

My cancer was discovered with a flex sig without sedation. I have a pretty high pain tolerance and I was screaming pretty loud. It was painful, and due to the tumor I was hemerrouging afterwards for quite a while.

Never ever again having anything in my butt without meds first.

RIP Gwen.

Congrats on continued good health/NED status.

I think you should do what makes you happy. I've got thoughts on what I'll do if I make it there disease free, but like you I'm a bit superstitious and don't really want to write it down, or even talk about it.

Pretty sure 5 year stats for stage 3 & 4 would show substantial improvement from what the numbers are currently at. In other word I think were already at treating stage 4 as a chronic disease in some people. It's only a matter of time before treatment will be targeted based on a persons genetic ...

Thank you for posting the update. Gwen has been one of the nicest and most caring people here

I'm sorry to hear she is not doing well . I'll keep her in my prayers and hope that the hospice people are doing their stuff and alleviating any pain or suffering.

Keep in mind that this is where the most drastic difference in CC vs RC exists. I forget the exact numbers but for CC recurrence, you were on the backside of the hill at 3 years in terms of percentage of recurrences after that point. For RC it was more around 3.8 years where number of recurrences pe...

. SO no more sorry for myself stuff I'm going to hunt out a counsellor and swim for exercise. Should get the brain chemistry bak on track. Dunno how mental health is treated in NZ, but yeah, I think only positive things can come out of seeing a counselor. At minimum they can teach you strategies yo...

-Advice of people to undergo non medical/scientific study substantiated treatments. -People who take speculation as gospel truth. My workplace is rampant with this crap. When I returned to work after surgery and radiation and then was off intermitenly due to chemo, I heard no less than 5 explanation...

Hope you make a quick recovery and the meds do their stuff

Hi, so...I have similar node involvement. Its possible that surgery got everything...when I had been looking back through old stats years before an effective chemo treatment was developed, I believe that the 5 year survival rate was around 15-25% for stage IIIc rectal cancer. If I remember correctly...

I don't really know how to put this mildly. There's a much stronger recurrence rate for rectal cancer that occurs later than it does for colon cancer. Personally I was not confortable making any significant life choices until after a third year of being NED, and even then Im not...well I'll say I kn...