Rectal cancer (Stage 3A) diagnosed late June 2017

[Sunnycd]

That’s great news! I go for my 3 month surveillance in about a month. I am slowly trying to exercise more, now that I am 6 weeks post reversal. Recovery has been very good, but about 5 weeks post takedown, I ended back in ER with a partial obstruction. My surgeon had said I could eat anything, no restrictions. However, I was very careful and introduced food little by little. After 4 weeks, I threw caution to the wind as I was doing so well, and…back to ER. Anyhow, lesson learned. Can’t wait to go back to yoga (I love hot yoga).

[NHMike]

That’s great news! I go for my 3 month surveillance in about a month. I am slowly trying to exercise more, now that I am 6 weeks post reversal. Recovery has been very good, but about 5 weeks post takedown, I ended back in ER with a partial obstruction. My surgeon had said I could eat anything, no restrictions. However, I was very careful and introduced food little by little. After 4 weeks, I threw caution to the wind as I was doing so well, and…back to ER. Anyhow, lesson learned. Can’t wait to go back to yoga (I love hot yoga).

My grocery store has a big popcorn display near the cash registers and I always look at it as I love popcorn. But I will have to say that there are a class of obstruction problems that I no longer have because I eliminated popcorn from my diet. And I'd guess that people that are prone to obstructions or that have them in recovery have the same issue but probably with different foods. I do plan on getting surgery to fix the problems but I'm waiting until the COVID situation clears up.

I also love Yoga now that I picked it up while on Chemo. There are a lot of advantages to Yoga and you can do it just about anytime and anywhere. I was doing a few standing poses while waiting for my appointment at Dana Farber last week.

I hope things go well for you as you get further from reversal.

[Sunnycd]

Funny you mention popcorn. I almost, almost ate it the day before the obstruction. I would have blamed it on the popcorn. Or worse, I would have blamed it on the wine…because I was craving popcorn and wine the day before At least now, I can still hope to try to have them at some point and see how it goes…

[NHMike]

I was at Dana Farber two weeks ago and the appointment was fine. We talked more about running and tennis than cancer stuff. Bloodwork is fine as is health. I haven't had obstructions since last summer and I think that I will generally attribute it to dietary changes, both what I eat and the volume I eat at any particular time and the time in-between meals. I do pass by a large popcorn display when I go grocery shopping and it's always tempting to buy a bag but I know better.

Keeping up with weights, running and supplements contributes to fewer LARs problems. But they do happen from time to time and chew up time.

I'm coming up on five years so I just need to make it to June this year to get into the survival stats.

The reason I came here to post is that there are now KRAS G12D inhibitors. I happened to see a company with a product that inhibits G12C and G12D and I found a paper on the approach used for G12D. I do not think that an inhibitor is a cure but it looks like it can be used to shrink tumors but what's interesting is that scientists have a way to target mutant cells. So it's basically a chunk of progress that could lead to much more in the future.

Sample paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41421-021-00368-w

[MadMed]

Great to hear from you Mike, I read all your posts as a fellow RC patient and MA resident. Thank you for all those details, they helped me through my own treatment. Thrilled to see you come up on 5 years.

[Atoq]

I was at Dana Farber two weeks ago and the appointment was fine. We talked more about running and tennis than cancer stuff. Bloodwork is fine as is health. I haven't had obstructions since last summer and I think that I will generally attribute it to dietary changes, both what I eat and the volume I eat at any particular time and the time in-between meals. I do pass by a large popcorn display when I go grocery shopping and it's always tempting to buy a bag but I know better.

So nice! Excellent news!

All the best

Claudia