Living with Colorectal Cancer

Hi friends suffering/battling and beating colon cancer, I am a member of your group. I am 36 years old, mother of 3 getting ready for round 2 of surgery to reverse a colostamy. In August 2006, just 2 1/2 months after giving birth to my 3rd child, I was diagnosed with colon cancer.

For months I had complained about the symptoms typical for colon cancer and my docs had attributed those to a difficult pregnancy. After my son was born, I felt fine for 2-3 weeks and then one morning, I stepped on the scale and had lost 15 pounds and all of the symptoms I was suffering from attacked me once again. I went to my regular physician who recommended a stool test and a CT scan.

Then immediately I was referred to a gastro who performed a colonoscopy or I should say tried to perform a colonoscopy. I had an 11 cm long tumor in my rectum. My world crumbled immediately - the diagnosis left me frozen and blue. My immediate thoughts circled around my baby - a child whom would never know his mother, would be too small to remember her smell, her laugh and would never learn her morals or life values.

The days following this discovery were painful - I did not have the courage to tell my family, couldn’t break the news to my very young daughters aged 5 and 7 at that time. I would look at my husband and mentally say bye. I wasted no time in meeting with surgeons, radiologists and oncologists. Since the tumor was so large, I needed presurgical radiation and chemotherapy to shrink it. It was a slow growing large tumor and my radiologist gently informed to not expect miracles from the radiation - it would not be reduced to the size of an ulcer by any means. But the upside was that it was slow growing.

My oncologist is fantastic - cutting edge and very educated with all types of chemotherapy I had radiation for 32 days and took Xeloda daily during that time alongwith 5fu for the first and last 3 days of the regimen. My surgeon is my savior. She was extremely thorough and very upfront about what I should expect in the months ahead. She had informed me that she would do her best to remove the tumor, get the negative margins but I needed to mentally get ready to deal with a colostamy.

My surgery was on Dec 14th and on Dec 15th I was given a new lease on life. I began an 6 cycle regimen of chemotherapy of FolFox, which ended in July. I was very sensitive to anything cold during the treatment, hated the cartridge machine I had to bring home for 3 days every other week, kid you not, gained 5 pounds with every treatment.

I have a port in my chest that refused to cooperate in the beginning. I am now getting ready for my next round of surgeries, 30 pounds heavier than my ideal weight. All through out I have worked on my off chemo weeks adn now am back at work full time.

My son is 17 months - is a handful to say the least and my daughters are 9 and 6 respectively. I live to find the 5 minutes of joy for myself everyday. I pray every day - I always did - but now I always pause and say a prayer for everyone inflicted with this disease.

May God Bless every doctor curing us and looking for better cures. May God bless every nurse, every hospital worker that helps us during our hospital stays. May God bless all those fighting to extend insurance to all those that need it to get the meds which keep us alive….May God give you strength to find that 5 minutes of joy everyday.