Hello Donnym,

                         l can well understand that you find yourself currently in a position of great anxiety and tremendous uncertainty and coming to terms with coping with that can at the moment seem like a hopeless impossibility.

Hopefully some of the uncertainty can be removed during your interview with your consultant, but many of us have found that it can answer the questions we attended with, but can raise yet more we forgot to ask as the enormity of processing your future treatment takes all of your thinking in that moment. A good idea is to prepare a list of questions in a quiet moment before attending and just remember to hand to the consultant, chances are you will be so focused on processing what you have been told you would forget to read them out. Its a good idea to attend with another person who could help you with this.

The anxiety over conversing about your issues does ease as you hold more conversations with the medical staff involved in your treatment as you realise that as professionals they do not see gross, but problems they need to find the very best outcomes for,

As you have realised we have all been there, and as a ten year survivor of stage4 bowel cancer with spread, the best advice l can offer is quickly accept where you are, know that you are being looked after by a skilled dedicated team, and realise that in all of this what you can bring to the table is your most calm self, allowing your body to be as stress free in order for it to focus its efforts on recovery.

MAGGIES is a great place to attend where you can share your load with others with no pressures placed upon you, if you have a centre local to you make the effort to attend, it was a lifesaver for me and many others.

Best wishes for the calmest you on your long journey back to good health,

 David