The Colon Club

O Stoma Mia wrote:SteveNZ -- I think it would probably be a good idea to set up a meeting to discuss the exact nature of your operation with your assigned surgeon. No doubt you would want to make sure that the surgery will be the best type of surgery for your situation.
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Thank you for that. Will see the surgeon tomorrow (our Friday in NZ) to discuss what is up. His aim is to complete the least possible damage.

A side issue is that the radiation caused a fair amount of damage with what is swollen painful tissue that is not healing well making 'passing faeces' pretty painful. In fact my whole bowel gets pretty painful as things pile up even these many weeks following the radiation.

Interesting-An outcome of the radiation in my case is that the nerves that let you know you are full and need to go (highly technical aren't I) do not really function any more so I pace myself and push after a reasonable time.
Or when my bladder goes non stop I know I am full.
Or I start leaking a bit...Oh brother.
Or suddenly my bowel 'hurts like he..ll' but by then I am too full and it is agony going at all.
Oh the joys of it all....

Here is a discussion thread to read before your meeting with the surgeon tomorrow:

LAR syndrome and laparoscopic surgery
https://coloncancersupport.colonclub.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=59120&p=467273#p467273

At your meeting, you should insure that they will be taking a CEA tumour-marker blood test just before surgery. This is so that you will have a proper CEA baseline for comparison purposes later on.

Also, when the surgical specimen is eventually sent for pathology, the surgeon should request that the tumour be tested for microsatellite instability (MSI) if this test has not already been done. In the West, this is now a requirement for all rectal cancer resections.

You can also ask the surgeon for the name of the particular type of surgery that he intends to do, e.g., laparoscopic resection? lap-assisted low anterior resection? open-surgery LAR? left hemi-colectomy, etc. Also, ask whether he will be installing a temporary ileostomy, and if so, for how long will the temp ileostomy will be needed?

In my opinion, the main problem with the surgery would be the stapled anastomosis connection, because I think it would be very difficult to get the stapler to work well with fragile, irradiated tissue.

https://coloncancersupport.colonclub.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=59355&p=472152#p472152