The Colon Club

Curious what others’ experiences are, whether it be colon or rectal cancer. How many days until first treatment from the time you were diagnosed? What’s typical?

I was diagnosed on December 17, 2015, a couple weeks after my colonoscopy. My resection surgery was January 20, 2016 and my chemo started March 4, 2016.

My husband was diagnosed mid April. Started his chemo radiation in on May 20th.

Had his surgery on August 14 and only tomorrow October 24 will start his first chemo(due to the delay by insurance)

Our colorectal oncologist at USC told us that they normally wait 8 weeks from surgery to start the chemo. Longer is not recommended.

Hope this helps.

81 days from discovery to first treatment

My husband was diagnosed in May 2017 and started chemo in August 2017 . . . so a little over 3 months . . . he had a very long recovery from surgery

I went to the ER on June 23, 2017 and received an informal diagnosis but we knew what it was. I started Chemo and Radiation on July 31, 2017 so six weeks from diagnosis to treatment. It took me two weeks to get second opinions and we could have started two weeks earlier without those appointments. I do think that it's better to get started sooner rather than later. The actual pathology came back the week after the ER visit. I was very fortunate that they could do the colonoscopy the same day that I arrived in the ER.

This was for rectal cancer - I think that things can be faster for colon cancer because the treatment order is significantly different.

I was diagnosed December 19th 2016, start Chemo/Radiation February 2017. I didn't do surgery which was scheduled for June 2017. When I had recurrence and liver metastasis In october of 2017, i started Folfox December 2017 thru February 2018. Then Surgery April 2018 and chemo again from June 2018 to August 2018. Surgery for Reversal October 2018.

Colonoscopy on 26 Feb, diagnosis on 3 Mar and surgery on 23 Mar.

With my colon cancer, things went very quickly for me. I went into the ER with fever and abdominal pain on my GI Nurse Practitioner's orders; it was the day before I had a second Cat scan scheduled. Got the Cat scan about 12 hours earlier than scheduled in the ER, colonoscopy a couple days after that, surgery to remove 24cm of my colon 2-3 days after that, and they finally sent me home 2 days after surgery. I was in a major cancer center to begin with, so I knew who would be my oncologist by the time I went home. I was on a liquid diet the whole week I was in the hospital and they did consider sending me home at times, but I'm glad they kept me in the hospital to expedite the tests and procedures. I was close to having a blockage and potential perforation, and that's why they wanted to address things ASAP rather than sending me home. I had 1 month to recover from surgery before starting chemo.

I'm pretty sure the recommendation is to begin chemo within 4 weeks of surgery, but when the surgery happens relative to diagnosis can vary. I'm no expert but it sounds like rectal cancer tends to involve treatment before surgery, unlike colon cancer.

Diagnosis Oct 23 2017 (it's my anniversary today)
Surgery Dec 4 2017
Chemo Jan 16 2018

I was not disappointed or upset with the timing.

mob

I was diagnosed in January of 2015, had surgery (colon resection) April 7, 2015 and chemo two weeks later. I had very slow growing low stage colon cancer with two close by lymph nodes involved.

DX the first week of June during a routine colonoscopy, surgery the last week of June, and chemo started the first week of August.

I was DX DEC 4TH
Began chemoraiation JAN 3RD
Surgery may 10th
Chemo Folfox July 10th (6 rounds oxi 8 rounds 5FU)
Due to finish this Friday!!!!!!!!!!
Reversal due in Dec/Jan ( my choice)
Apparently then all done!!!!!!

Pretty much a hear in it
ADELE X

My wife had rectal cancer and it took about 8 weeks before they started chemo/radiation.

Dx on Janruary30th, surgery on February4th, first chemo on March 3rd.

deb m