Postby Nicolouna » Thu Apr 12, 2018 1:54 am
I was diagnosed with a stage 2b or 2c colon cancer in August 2013, with poor prognostic factors (poorly differentiated, lots of invasion, T4 tumor). I opted for taking the chemo. 12 rounds of FOLFOX. Then I lived my life to the fullest - eloped, bought a condo, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. A few months after giving birth, my scan showed a tiny new mass near my duodenum. PET was clear, CEA normal and I even had laparoscopic surgery to biopsy the mass. The result was it was fibrotic tissue. My onc followed me closely and this mass started to grow VERY slowly. Then everything kind of went wild from there. About a year after discovering this mass, they operated on me to remove a suspicious ovarian cyst which turned out to be cancerous. A few days postop, I developed jaundice which turned out to be unrelated to the ovarian tumor, but rather it was the duodenum mass that was growing into my pancreas. Had an ERCP to insert a stent and had the mass biopsied from another angle.... looked very much like a met from the colon so I started chemo right away (Folfiri) and a few months later, a Whipple’s surgery to remove the mass and rewire my entire GI tract. At the moment, I have been declared NED (have had 2 scans since my Whipple’s). I am almost at the finish line of my chemos. Sorry for the super long text. I’m not saying this will happen to you but I would probably do the chemo just in case there are errand cancer cells... I’m actually doing well despite all this and I don’t regret choosing to do the chemo. Would want to put all the chances on my side.
Dx @ 27yo, female w colon cancer (T4N0M0)
Aug 2013: R hemicolectomy
FOLFOX: Oct 2013-April 2014, NED
May 2016: had a baby ❤️
June 2017: L ovary met, surgical removal
July 2017: pancreatic met
Aug 2017: FOLFIRI
Dec 2017: Whipple’s. 1/36 nodes+
May 2018: 12 FOLFIRI done, NED
Sept 2018: abnormal cyst R ovary - surgery, no cancer (false alarm)
Dec 2019: abdo wall met, resected, clear margins
Oct 2020: new primary colon ca (T4N0), partial colectomy
Nov 2020: XELOX reaction, converted to FOLFOX