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Mum newly diagnosed

Lyns_2111
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Hello, my mum has recently been diagnosed with bowel cancer. It has come as a huge shocked as she had no real symptoms and it was picked up in the routine screening test. 
The CT scan has showed no evidence of spread and she's scheduled for surgery, a right hemicolectomy next Friday. 
I'm so scared of the next steps, my mum is being positive and for her sake I'm trying to do the same but it is so difficult. 

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    Hi, 

    I am remembering the shock of my husbands diagnosis. It was all (still is) all a bit surreal. I felt, how on earth can the guy sat opposite me have the dreaded C... he looks to well etc etc, even now that he has a  load of chemo and the surgery, he is sat opposite me moaning about the snow forecast!

    Screening- we all have in some form or another and rarely  think anything of it. In this case screening has really done its job well.

    Sounds like the services involved are really cracking on, excellent that surgery is booked. 
     

    I think it is sometimes worse for the onlooker, the 'patient' always seems more calm(:

    over thinking all outcomes goes with being human I'm afraid, I guess we all do it, we would like to stop, but the brain will just not behave.  I found the waiting the worst bit, once things got cracking it became easier, or maybe my brain had just processed it.

    i know this is going to sound really weird...... when we got our diagnosis, I even thought ' thank god it's only cancer !!!!! , it could have been much worse, a condition that has no treatment or chance of cure!!

    Ask the dr's everything that is bothering you. Ours have been great, I asked direct questions and got direct answers, no flannel.

    Like my husbands op , oesophagectomy,a hemicolectomy is a big procedure. I was expecting weeks in hospital, loads of problems etc.... nope 7 days in and all done by keyhole! Incredible. My brain had told me all the possible bad things would happen and I was expecting the worst! None of them did.

    sometimes I wonder if it is actually quite good to imagine the worst, then the reality can only be better- if that makes sense.

    Anyhow crack on and get the *** chopped out.

    Good luck.

  • Offline in reply to Hilts

    Hi Hilts,

    Thanks for taking the time to reply. It's nice to hear from someone who's been there and understands the shock and helplessness. 
     

    I'm pleased to say that my mum had her surgery last Friday and got home on Tuesday. All went as planned, keyhole surgery with no stoma. Now it's a case of recovering from the surgery and waiting for histology results. The surgeon mentioned that from what he could tell it was small so hoping for the best there too.

  • Offline in reply to Lyns_2111

    Haha, 

    Knew you'd get there. Wow, that was a good turnaround. Incredible how they are so slick with surgery these days.

    i am an ex nurse, so you can imagine what I was imagining! When I thought about oesophagectomy I was thinking the worst, until a friend of mine stated that my experiences were 1988!!!!!!
    how things have moved on. I had my gallbladder done by keyhole a few years ago. Wow, no more 'painful' than wind . The healing of my husbands oesophagectomy has been unreal, he was walking down the road & back 2 weeks after. There is very little muscle damage the keyhole way, and that is what takes the time and the pain.

    We are now a little 'flat' , a case of okay we've had the drama, what shall we do now. He is a bit miffed that the consultants never use the term 'cured'- well at least for 5 yrs. So don't expect it at your next appt. His histology was brilliant, no lymph, mets, mostly only scar tissue left after them chemo, they said it was as good as it could have been, but we were told 'you are active/visable disease free',\remission doesn't have the same 'ring' to it as cured. 
    We are now on the post op chemo. Don't be overly concerned if you are offered this regardless of histology. They like to give it , in case of any rogue cells that might have gone on the move to set up somewhere else. So they get murdered before they have chance to make a new home (:

    Best wishes to you all.

    hilts

     

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