← Return to Colorectal cancer stage 1 with positive margin

Discussion

Colorectal cancer stage 1 with positive margin

Colorectal Cancer | Last Active: Jan 20 1:22pm | Replies (31)

Comment receiving replies
@bellsina71

I'm going to be really honest with you being someone that was 38 years old and diagnosed with colon cancer. I had a complete procto-collectomy which is a complete removal of my large intestine and rectum, had to have an ileostomy bag for 3 months while things healed and then they hooked everything back up and I can go to the bathroom normally now; basically my small intestine took over the job of my large intestine.

Anyway, I highly recommend you get the resectioning done. It's going to be a very small portion of your intestine! Nothing like my surgery was and the healing time should be relatively very quick. You're not going to even miss that small part of your colon! You may have a little bit of diarrhea, and maybe some changes in bowel movements and digestion initially, but you will get used to it very quickly and your body will adjust.
Colon cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. It is highly curable when caught early. There is no good reason to not have the surgery and to make sure you are being staged and it's being treated correctly! This is not something that you want to put on the back burner. Get a 2nd opinion if that's what you want and when they tell you that surgery is the best option to make sure that the cancer hasn't spread or went through your colon wall, then please schedule surgery and have it done. The sooner the better. Unfortunately with colon cancer and with cancer of the small intestine there is no way for them to tell how far or how deep the cancer has gone through the colon wall until it's removed and they can do a pathology on it, and check the lymph nodes to make sure it hasn't spread. After my surgery they did the pathology on my colon and found cancer in places that they did not see on the original colonoscopy. With that surgery I was in the hospital for about a week, and recovery went really well for me. Since yours is a resection, which I just had on my small intestine in March, you should only be in the hospital for a few days with no complications.
I just wanted to send this to you when I saw your post because I just can't see any good reason for you not to have the surgery. They do the surgery every day, this isn't like 20 or 30 years ago when this was new and there was a lot of complications. This is so common now and it saves so many people's lives. There is surgeons out there that specialize in doing only these sorts of surgeries and they are excellent at what they do.
If you have any questions I'd be more than happy to answer. But please don't mess around with this sort of cancer. It is deadly. There is no way for them to know how advanced that cancer is until they get it out of you.
Yours truly-
Angela

Jump to this post


Replies to "I'm going to be really honest with you being someone that was 38 years old and..."

Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I deeply appreciate it. As I am re-reading my pathology results. I’ll schedule a surgery soon. Hopefully no open surgery though.

I will keep updating.
Again thank you for taking time responding to my concern.

@bellsina71
I'm so glad things went so well for you.
I'm getting a full rectum and mesorectum resection, with a pullthrough and coloanal anastomosis at the end of the month. I really wonder how the adaptation to the colon doing the function of the rectum will go. I'm looking for tips for making it as painless and accidentless as possible.