Dear benben, Dear all, Thank you so much for your kind words and for your support. I ended up coming to the hospital and staying the night. I was very unsettled and could not sleep without medication. I don't now if I will be home today or tomorrow, but i know this was the best decision for me. I r...

Thanks for the reply NHMike! The nearest thing in Las Vegas I would assume is the Comprehensive Cancer Center so I'll be looking into that... It looks like Comprehensive Cancer Center of Nevada is mainly a "for-profit" hospital. There are some websites out there that have reviews on them....

Thanks for the reply NHMike! The nearest thing in Las Vegas I would assume is the Comprehensive Cancer Center so I'll be looking into that. Not much great help in the west that I've heard of but I will be on the search. I'm assuming records are shared from oncologist to oncologist? Thank you for yo...

I thought that I'd read up on Microsatellite Instability and what it means and ran into a paper that categorizes CRCs into types. The purpose of the paper is to talk about MSI-High and the implications of it. MSI-High affects about 15% of patients. Of these, about 3% have what's called Lynch Syndrom...

I'm sorry to hear but it's totally normal to feel the way you are. Did your pathology report say low grade adenocarcinoma ? How many lymphs involved? Ya the waiting part is so hard. My mom had to wait until July to get chemo radiation done after he diagnosis in early May! I thought for sure it was ...

Microsatellite status is very important to know because just some months ago immunotherapy has been approved for those MSI-High --microsatellite instable high. And there are many trials combining immunotherapy + other agent --that might be chemo or other immunotherapy-- for those MSS --microsatteli...

I'm sorry that you have to deal with these problems as taking care of parents can be quite taxing. I went for second opinions after talking to the local oncologist and radiologist. It involved traveling to the nearby large city and arranging appointments at a National Cancer Center. I had to cover c...

My concern is that the mass keeps getting bigger in the 9 days before I start radiation and that I can't poop in that time. I know how you feel, my mom felt the same way but just know this. Before chemo/radiation you want to do a high fiber diet (to get BM out) So for my mom, we did oatmeal, any be...

When is your appointment, and when are you going to start on the prep? It's very important to have a good clean-out. My appt has been delayed due to me requesting to be "put out" (Propifol) They said that dont' need to be put out but still unsure. I have read some scary stories about bein...

I would guess that a GI doctor would be the best person to talk to - mine does colonoscopies routinely (a bunch per week) and he would likely have the best expertise on dealing with these kinds of problems. I'm a bit surprised that enemas didn't work if you had enough fluid to get to the blockage. I...

I went for the Chemoteach course at the hospital to learn about the Xeloda side-effects and how to get in touch if there are any problems (24-hours on-call service). I also asked if the person teaching had ever had an off-hours emergency and she said no. I asked if anyone had extreme side-effects an...

Ana, the oxaliplatin does only a small part of the chemotherapy work. Most of the chemotherapy benefit comes from 5-fluorouracil (from Xeloda). I read somewhere that oxaliplatin improves survival by something like only 3%. That's really good to know after I read about the potential side effects of ...

I've seen the technological progress on the war on cancer and intellectually understand that surviving five or ten years could bring cures or vaccines to various kinds of cancer. I'd love it if there were targeted treatments for colorectal cancer but these seem to be developed for other kinds of ca...

I chatted with a coworker yesterday (he has lung cancer). He had a lot of fluid in his lungs and it had been drained a few times and it didn't get better until he was on a targeted treatment for his lung cancer. It got a lot better and then the cancer mutated and the fluid came back. They put him on...

... I chose Thursdays for my infusions and hope to go to work on Mondays. Since you are going to have your infusions on Thursdays, I would suggest that you talk to your oncologist about how to obtain help if you ever have a Grade 3 or Grade 4 reaction on Saturday or Sunday when the Infusion Center ...