teachpdx wrote:Trajan89 wrote:Bowel surgery is not something to be played around with. Once they perform surgery on you, I guarantee that you will not want to live very long because of the deleterious effects of that kind of surgery on your quality of life.
Find a third option.
I don't often get angry when I see a post, but Trajan89 your post made me VERY angry You are entitled to your opinion, but you do not have a signature so we don't know what your frame of reference is. I had a LAR and have NO rectum and have managed to get on with my life. So how long have YOU been living with your low QOL? Sorry about that.
weisssoccermom wrote:It's not fair to say that because you chose TEM and had a recurrence that it is necessarily a bad option. I also chose that option in 2007 and have been cancer free ever since. The only person who can make the choice is the patient him/herself. What was right/wrong for any one patient isn't necessarily right/wrong for another.
Trajan89 wrote:teachpdx wrote:Trajan89 wrote:Bowel surgery is not something to be played around with. Once they perform surgery on you, I guarantee that you will not want to live very long because of the deleterious effects of that kind of surgery on your quality of life.
Find a third option.
I don't often get angry when I see a post, but Trajan89 your post made me VERY angry You are entitled to your opinion, but you do not have a signature so we don't know what your frame of reference is. I had a LAR and have NO rectum and have managed to get on with my life. So how long have YOU been living with your low QOL? Sorry about that.
I had my rectum resectioned because of a recto-rectal intussusception. My surgeon at Johns Hopkins told me that there would be no side-effects after the surgery and once I came home, I quickly realized that he was a charming sociopath with good people skills, who had lied to me.
I've been living with LARS for the past 6 years of my life and it absolutely sucks. I hate having to constantly go to the bathroom once every 3 hours and when I'm not there, I experience symptoms like increased gas and urgency. It sucks that I can no longer hangout with my friends and family and eat socially again like I was once able to. Quite honestly, I can't understand how you're willing to accept such a low quality of life.
I'm writing this to let Cat no about the possible side-effects of this type of surgery so that she can make an informed decision.
CatHair wrote:What to do? Screening colonoscopy found rectal cancer four weeks ago. CT scan & MRI imaging and labs are encouraging -- max T2 (says the radiologist), extremely low CEA, no apparent lymph involvement -- but the polyp is 4.4 x 2.2 x 1.5cm and located very close to the anus. The surgeon, who is around 60 years old, excellent and whom we like, was first talking about "standard" for this situation: taking my dear rectum (only way to get to the lymph nodes to check them) and doing colo-anal resection with temporary (3-month) ileostomy -- awful surgery that would leave me with sensation and control but basically at the whim of my bowels for the rest of my life -- but would eliminate any chance of spread. Then he looked again at the MRI and offered trans-anal excision -- much less invasive, outpatient surgery, one week recovery, though would have to be followed by chemo/radiation. It is not "standard" but his senior partner (surgeon is #2 in seniority in large practice in Texas Medical Center) concurred that it would be "appropriate to offer" and "not unreasonable" for me. He says if it were he, he'd go for the lesser procedure. We will talk again two days from now. Surgery date is 12 days from now, and I must make a decision a few days beforehand so they can set up the operating room.
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