Living with Colorectal Cancer

March 13th My Wife was diagnosed by a painful colostomy where the Dr pushed the scope through a tumor in her colon waking her up from anastesia [anesthesia]. March 17th found out that She had cancer and had blood tests to check liver and kidney function and had a cat scan.

March 21st the surgery took place and the first thing the Surgeon said to me when the surgery was over is that they didn’t need to remove as much of the colon as they originally told us they would do. I thought that was ok not knowing any better. the surgeon also took out her appendix just because it looked longer than normal was the reasoning. I thought, well I guess that’s ok. The surgeon told us that she did one of these procedures a week so we felt confident that the surgeon knows what they are doing. Sandi came through the miserable surgery ok. Happy she made it now to recover and meet the Oncologist April 10th.

The Oncologist is top notch!! told us not enough colon was removed for him to make an accurate determination as to the next course of action. He went back to the pathologist and asked surgeon for more information. He looked unsettled but he was comforting and we left still not knowing what is next.

April 15th we went back to the Oncologist and he floored us by saying my wife should have the surgery over. He said he could do chemo now but didn’t recommend it until he saw the rest of the colon that was supposed to be taken out. He told us to think about it and get back with him after the next surgery. He was not happy to tell us the news but I respect his professionalism in giving us the best option for my wife to live longer even though it is going to be tough to go through again.

I’m furious at the surgeon that did the operation beyond belief. We are both stuck not knwing what to do. April 17th the surgeon that did the operation called and said my wife was a candidate for chemo anyway do to the type of cancer she has. I am still too mad to even talk to that surgeon!! the surgeon recommends us to another surgeon and begs my wife to go see A surgical oncologist supposedly.

I researched the new Dr. and he looks like he specialises in colon rectal surgery. Nothing about him being an oncologist too though. Why didn’t we get recommended to him in the first place? We are already set to meet with a different surgeon set up by our oncologist. We meet him April 25th, tomorrow. We already know from other sources that He and the Surgeon/ oncologist recommended by our first surgeon, are in full agreement with our oncologist about another surgery. The only one that feels like no surgery is needed is the first surgeon. My wife is 39 yrs. young. Very healthy. No smoke or drink and we’ve been married 20 yrs.

Now that I’ve researched colon cancer surgery I’m worried that we are far worse off now than before. If the Surgeon didn’t do things right, there might be cancer cells sent all over my wife now where they were just confined to the one tumor. Originally she had no lymph node damage but there were so few to inspect that they couldn’t asses the situation as good as they could have if she had all the pieces out and analyzed and they were clean. She wouln’t need chemo and the oncologist felt she could beat the cancer 85 to 90% without chemo Now we are back to set up another surgery in two weeks. Waiting for the results of the genetic test. My wife is strong but I feel powerless to help her. We trusted the first group of dr’s and now it’s hard to even believe the chance of long term survival has been changed drastically because of a surgeon doing something outside of best practices normal procedure. I feel sorry for anyone that has to go through something like this.