@prettyeyes6 You could have your mom join the forums here on Mayo Clinic Connect, so she could read and converse with various persons who have had rectal cancer.

@evo, at the end of October 2022, I had a colonoscopy because my colorectal surgeon had touched a very low friable polyp with her gloved finger when I had consulted with her earlier that month. The biopsy said it was pre-cancerous. So, I had a transanal resection on Dec. 17, 2022, and the new biopsy said there were positive margins. The surgeon said she didn't want to operate again because she feared she would damage the sphincter and there was nothing else to see during the first surgery. She sent me to an oncologist. The oncologist agreed with her that the right path was to skip a new surgery and to radiotherapy. So I had RT in Feb and March 2023, which led to rectovaginal fistula. To my husband and I, it all sounded very logical and we decided not to go for a second opinion.
When I consulted the surgeon about fixing the fistula, I didn't like her proposal, so this time I decided to get a 2nd opinion. This surgeon, considered the best colorectal surgeon in town, said he would have operated again and taken a wait-and-see attitude before jumping into radiotherapy. His proposal to fix the fistula sounded scary, so we went for a third opinion, with a cancer investigator. He agreed with the second surgeon on all counts. I had a new colonoscopy and there was a new polyp facing the fistula. So I ended up having a very radical surgery to fix the fistula, remove the polyp, reduce the risk of new polyps in the rectum to nothing so as to reduce the risk of cancer to its most minimum risk.

So I encourage you to have a second opinion.