Punky44 wrote:Vent away! This is a great place for that and even more to get great information and great support. You will definitely feel more in control and less like a tornado once you have more info and a plan in place. Is your surgeon board certified in colorectal surgery? I think the term you might be talking about with the heated chemo is HIPEC, which I’ve seen discussed here.
boxhill wrote:HIPEC is indeed the name of the abdominal heated chemo treatment, BTW. It is often combined with cytoreduction, a procedure to remove as much malignancy as possible in the peritoneum. You might want to look both of those up so you have more information before your next appointment. Regarding perforation, it may well be that they can't be absolutely certain until you have surgery. Certainly you can't be reliably staged until then.
Are they talking about doing a right hemicolectomy, or another procedure? I've looked this up before, and it's not clear to me whether the hemicolectomy is standard for cecum cancer. Do not hesitate to ask about alternatives and ask for a second opinion before signing off on any plan of treatment
My advice is to do some reading so that you have a firmer grasp of what you team is talking about. It is my experience that the more evidence you give of having developed some understanding, the more information they will give you. Some people don't want to know: they just want the doctors to do what they think is best. And if that's what they want that's their choice. You don't sound like that type of person.
BTW, it sounds as if you have a very responsive PCP in your corner, and that can help a lot.
Malidosa wrote:Hi there,
So it sounds like you and I are going through something very similar right now.
I started having off and on pain in my rectum for the last couple months so went to GI Dr received a colonoscopy only to be blindsided by finding out I had a mass in my cecum that was pronounced cancerous. I have no family history of this and I’m 35
I’m sure you know. But my emotions have ranged from I got this I’m ready to take the beast down to the darkest of darkest cave, the feeling of lose of control over my body.
I’ve stepped into a world that I feel so guilty now for being oblivious of all these years. The suffering and the emotions of the many individuals who have faced the same experience.
I met with my colorectal surgeon on Friday 1/3. And I can tell you just having the surgery scheduled feels like I gained even the smallest amount of control back. Surgery is 1/16 and honestly just counting down the days at this point.
I too won’t have full staging until it’s removed. And she suspects the pain in my rectum is from tiny cracked fissures and not related to the mass.
Please continue to provide updates on your status as I haven’t been able to find too many people who have had the cecum mass like me. There was one lady on here who’s husband had a cecum mass and he is 9 years cancer free. Just her messaging that helps so much. I’m so appreciative of the support and positivity on this board. I hope you find comfort in it as well.
Vana3 wrote:Hi,
This past June my doc found a Mass in the cecum during my colonoscopy, I was 4 months postpartum during that time. I just recently turned 37 years old.
I am so sorry you are both going through this.....
Looking back I wished the doc had done a pet scan first to figure whether surgery or chemo first is better. Whether surgery or chemo is better right away for right sided colon cancer seems undecided. You want to make sure you have a surgeon that can and plans on harvesting as many lymph nodes as possible especially when removing a right sided mass. Regular standard is 12 lymph nodes but gold standard is over 40-50+ if they can specifically for right side. I also had a surgeon with many hours of training in checking the entire abdomen for cancer before performing the actually surgery, which turned out to be a very good thing in my case.
There is also a drug that I think may be good to take before surgery called Cimetidine to assist with healing/fighting cancer while you are going thru a major surgery but we did not know about this at that time. Maybe another member knows more about this ?
Don’t be afraid to to breath, and wait to see a specialist in Colon oncology. A general community oncologist will not be as well versed in colon cancer.
My whole life changed the day I got the colonoscopy I can only imagine how you are feeling and am sending good thoughts.
Beckster wrote:Welcome!
In October 2016, I was diagnosed with a cancerous cecum mass during my first colonoscopy screening. I had no symptoms and my blood work was pristine. With that said, I was in a fog for days....asking myself "How did this happen? I don't understand." After the biopsy confirmed the cancer, I met with a colon rectal surgeon who preformed a right sided resection. As you can see by my signature, I was stage 2A with LVI and a Grade 3 tumor. I am now over 3 years out and doing fine. The surgery was preformed laparoscopic and I was in the hospital for 2 days. I truly feel that picking the right surgeon is the most important part of your journey. If needed, get a second opinion. Maybe it is something new, but I never heard of the heated procedure you spoke about. Good Luck with your appointment and keep up posted.
Beckster
boxhill wrote:hksvcap1, FWIW I had a right hemicolectomy with many lymph nodes removed for biopsy (as you can see in my sig), along with sections of omentum and a little chunk of my liver. Cecum and appendix also, as is standard. My surgeon, who did an excellent job, especially in identifying my little liver met by feel and removing it when it did not show up on the pre-op CT scan, is NOT a board-certified colorectal surgeon. He is very experienced and has done many such surgeries, but in fact specializes in the liver, and does liver transplants as well as resections. Personally, I would be more concerned about finding a board-certified colorectal surgeon if I were looking at a tricky rectal surgery. But YMMV.
Because I had emergency surgery and they needed to take a good look around since the ability to examine everything really closely with full-contrast CT and MRI wasn't there, I had open surgery. Everything was fine, and I could not be happier with the results.
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