Good evening, I am writing here today as I feel very confused and angry and I would like to know if anybody has experienced the same thing as we have and how they coped with it?
Basically, my husband was initially diagnosed with bowel cancer back in January this year. This came as a great shock as completely unexpected. He had surgery to remove a large part of his colon and has since got a colostomy bag in place. The tumor was also touching the uretere and so he had catheters in place for weeks etc.
After the op, the doctors told us that it was Duke C bowel cancer, with 3 lymph nodes affected out of 20. They said they removed the tumour ok and that he would have to go through 12 cycles of Folfox chemo because of the 3 lymph nodes but that it was all very positive. They said the scans were clear in the lungs and liver.
So my husband started the Folfox chemo and went through the whole 12 cyles with not much side effects at all, just some pins and needles in his hands and feet and metallic taste in the mouth but no major issues, no nausea etc.
So we went for his CT scan quite confident last week and then to see the oncologist yesterday hoping he'd get the all clear. But no, he didn't.... the oncologist said that the chemo had not had any effect and that he now had 4 suspect areas on his liver.
We were really shocked at this and couldn't really think straight in the doctor's office so we just nodded and tried to take it in. The Dr said that my husband would have to have a pet scan and an MRI and that we'd see him again in 4 weeks' time for the next steps, where he'd tell us if the tumor is operable or not.
Back home, my husband's first reaction was - how did they not see during the last 6 months that the chemo was not working? Why were the 4 areas on the liver not spotted before? What if it's too late now? What if they gave him the wrong type of chemo and they should have given something else/checked earlier that it was working (or in this case not working)?
We are both so tired, the whole thing has been going on non-stop since January, we thought we were are the end of it, and we now have to start again from the start... We had to cancel our holiday for the second time (it was booked for new years's eve so we could celebrate the end of this horrible year) and we now don't even know if we'll ever go on holiday again... I am trying to keep positive but I just feel we have wasted 6 months letting this thing spread over when it should have been blasted by the chemo. I am just very angry and lost...
