The Colon Club

I totally get what you saying and how pissed off you feel. My Mom has always been a healthy person, yet her sister and brother are lifelong extremely heavy smokers and heavy drinkers who ask to die, yet they are healthy as can be. I would never ever wish what my Mom is going through on anyone, but sometimes through this journey it does upset me.

I wish you and everyone all the best!

It is really refreshing to see "I am in the same boat" with so many of you, having lived a fairly healthy lifestyle and STILL got this UNIVITED "guest"! Excellent "survey".

THAT was MY very FIRST thought when I go the diagnosis: WTH, ME, who DOESN't LIKE junk food, who drinks water (and yes, LOVE my red wine), likes clean and healthy food, doesn;t do well with red meat, so I don;t eat usually, excersises and has a very healthy spiritual outlook...So, WHAT happened?

I reflected, of course, a lot and I came up with this (for me and my life): the past 2 years I worked in an office in a new building, with new paint, new carpet, new everything. Since I work in the car business (nope, NOT sales...lol), we even have signs that say this environment may cause cancer......yep... I also was using a Teflon pan with a little scratch that should have been discarded. Then I had 14 months of EXTREME stress at work AND hostile boss (he was hired and fired 14 months later) that made a lot of our lives challenging. So, just between those "causes", I am pretty sure it is environmental. My grandma did die from colon cancer, but when she was diagnosed, she was Stage VI and since she lived in former east germany, she never really had any screening done.
I have a holistic background and worked with Dr. James D'Adamo and followed his Blood Type nutrition 20 years ago and felt REALLY good. Of course, live happens and I slipped little by little and yes, I ate stuff that was not the most beneficial for my blood type. I still believe very much in the fact what we eat and how we can digest things has a lot to do with our type. (NO, I am not promoting ANYTHING here, jsut sharing my own experience. Everybody is different and everybody needs to find their own).

I will use this approach during my upcoming Chemo as I feel this will help me and support my body in healing. And YES, if I fricking feel like a big ol' bowl of Ice Cream, I WILL have it... dairy for me or not! - I know there is a balance in life and if you listen to your body, with that little TINY voice, you will eat what is a better choice.

So, no, I am not beating myself up for "where did I go wrong", rather, I am looking at HOW can I BEST get through this and support my body so I can be of help to others and life my purpose and continue to enjoy life.

Thanks for the great post!

Former smoker, I now vape. Hmm high school was full of "experimentation" with various substances

Never have been much of a drinker, I have gotten pretty plastered a time or two.

Food is my vice big time. I weigh more than I should, even if I did lose a lot when I first got sick I find the pounds are creeping on again with my reduced activity and it is driving me nuts.

I smoked a pack a day for eleven years, and I quit twenty two years ago. I seldom eat meat now and I've never been a big meat eater. My biggest current risks are that I am somewhat sedentary (but I've been working on taking the dogs on longer walks), and I am very overweight (70 pounds or so). My oncologist recently reminded me that one of the meds I take for depression is notorious for causing weight gain, but I can't see how I can stop taking it. I've been working on my weight recently, but I've made very little progress.

My cancer seemed to come out of nowhere when I was diagnosed. There was no history of colon cancer in my family and I was only 42. I had quit my bad habits so many years prior to diagnosis, and although I was overweight, I was not nearly as heavy as I am now. It doesn't really feel like it came out of nowhere any more. I've learned over the last eight years how very many people get cancer at younger ages and I have a little more clarity on all the risk I accumulated when I was young. I've also since learned that there was more cancer in my family than I realized, just not colon cancer.

I enjoy a few ice cold beers (when the Oxaliplatin allows) and am partial to a single malt scotch. My ither main vice is cigars, which id have once every 3-6months.

In terms of food, I love my meat, particularly bacon, salami and other smoked/cured meats etc.

I was super fit at school/uni and then 'relaxed' after I got married and became 'cuddly'. Not really fat but carrying a few extra kgs. That said, I've lost about 12kgs with my ileostomy and I hope to keep it off so I may have to lay off some of the good stuff.

The way I look at it is we've been dealt a shitty hand, and we don't know how much time we have left, so we may as well have some simple pleasures, in moderation of course

Hope to one day share a beer/scotch/cigar with some of you kind folks

GK