All,
I was diagnosed with stage 3c Colon cancer last year. I had a lovely time with chemo and radiation, doing a few months of both together followed by 4 months of infusions. I nearly died from a massive pulmonary embolism which required surgery to remove 39 clots from my lungs (this is a very risky part of chemo so please look out for symptoms if you are not already) The chemo/radiation combo seemed to be the 1-2 punch necessary to reduce my tumor to nearly the size of....something too small to find on a CT scan. My team of Oncologists strongly recommended that I have surgery for a resection just for laughs (actually they said a bunch of fancy doctor gibberish that I understood as "blah blah blah, you will get cancer again without surgery")
So off I go to surgery. I feel like this would be a good time to note that my surgery was specified as an "ultra low colon resection" which is doctor for "this will probably suck a lot" Lucky for me, I had worn my lucky underpants the day I met my surgeon and got in on a new "never been done in the US" trial procedure. I won't get into that too much, but the short version is I did not get the normal illeostomy or diverted whatchamacallit. I had an implant that gave me 10 straight days of unbelievable fun and games before it was taken out and then I was supposed to be on the fast track to recovery. If you want that story you will need to ask, Its a real good bedtime story for the kids.
Now the real reason I am here: Is there anyone else suffering from post surgery/resection bathroom issues? I of course have reached out to my surgeon and oncologist who are great with cutting me up and filling me full of questionable chemicals but have been no help whatsoever with my current problems. I have terrible days where I need to #2 every 30-40 minutes for 12 hours at a time. This is great because it has the added bonus of turning my backside into the set of a horror film. I have tried fiber, OTC IBS meds, some luck with Zophran....can anyone help with this? Ideas? Am I the only one?