Today I got my five year graduation certificate...no more tests or followups except for a sigmoidoscopy every two years. Doc said to exercise, eat healthily and see my GP if I had any unexplained pain or changes in bowel movements but recurrence after this long would be quite unusual. CEA today was 1.1. Huzzahs
I asked him - if I were to appear today with the same symptoms I had in November 2009 - whether the treatment would be the same (total colectomy, folfox, followups via CEA/CT etc.). His answer was that there would be no change...the exact same treatment path would be followed. Depressing, really, that , despite all the work going on, there seems to have been no advances that translate into better treatment options.
I also asked him about POG, which I know is for late stagers. He said our local hospital is developing some capacity but the problem with POG is that, after identifying the drivers for a tumour, you then need to find out how to turn them off...and that would take immense amounts of research...especially when done case-by-case. We talked about the BCCA case where a woman with stage 4 has apparently achieved remission by taking a blood pressure medication that was targetted at the protein driving her tumour. He said this was wonderful but also lucky. Yepper.