43 Yr Old Wife Diagosed with Rectal Cancer Last Week

JayNY
JayNY Member Posts: 4
in Colorectal Cancer #1

After having some rectal bleeding on and off for a few years, my wife got a colonoscopy on Aug 7th. Doc came out and told me she did not have hemorroids (as she thought) but instead a very large polyp. He explained that it would be removed tomorrow morning by EMR since the doctor experienced in that procedure would need to do it. The EMR seemed to be uneventful. Prior to EMR, an EUS was performed to visualized the polyp/mass. The paperwork we recieved after EMR ans EUS stated: "Rectal mass/polyp was visualized endoscopically suggesting that the mass remained confined to the luminal interface/superficial mucosa (layer 1). Images of the perirectal spaced were unremarkable. Images of the anal canal were unremarkable. No lymph nodes were seen. No specimens were collected." "One 45mm polyp in the rectum , EMR was performed followed by coagulation of polypectomy margins using argon plasma was successful to prevent recurrence of polyp. The examination was otherwise normal."

I had suspected cancer but after colonospy dr. said they dont know until biopsy is done. Last week dr. who performed EMR said that buopsy was done and there are "some cancer cells". We asked what stage....he did not give us a number but said early stage. My wife has a ct scheduled and then a consult with the cancer specialist. 

From what we know so far, what are people's thoughts? My wife feels confident they got all the cancer out. Im more worried.

Thank you for any input/suggestions.

Jay

Comments

  • mozart13
    mozart13 Member Posts: 118
    #2
    Early stage

    I had simillar symptoms, blood in the stool,  initally thought hemmeroids, after the week of using over the counter stuff, I realized that the   problem was biger, went for colonoscopy, was told that it looks like cancer, rectal, they sent it for biopsy, but the proccess sterted the very same day, they boked  CT to see if there are any mets present, and MRI for staging of cancer, result was T1,2N0M0.

    Started chemo/rad, 25 sessions, chemo was xeloda pills, not much of symptoms, no pain.

    They re-staged it 2 weeks after therapy, than 2 months after again, couple of MRI's, CT x1, colonoscopy x2, cancer was no longer there, offered wait and see approach, accepted, started folfox 10 rounds, , almost there, had CT couple of days ago, will haveMRI in 2 weeks, than colonoscopy, if every thing still negative, back to work, can't wait , am bored at home.

    Good luck to you and your wife!

  • Annabelle41415
    Annabelle41415 Member Posts: 6,742 Member
    edited August 2017 #3
    Sorry

    Sorry you have to be here but sounds like it was caught early.  Mine was the exact symtoms and turned out to be cancer.  Blood in stool but also terrible time sitting due to tumor.  Mine was the size of a nickle.  Wait for staging and after they determine what treatment they want to do.  Mine was chemo/rad, surgery, chemo.  Hope wife is doing better.  Please keep us updated.  Read my "about me" page which describes my journey as I've been through this.

    Kim

  • darcher
    darcher Member Posts: 304 Member
    #4
    Consider yourself very lucky

    Consider yourself very lucky that it was caught when it's in the superficial mucosa.  Mine is smaller but dug in deep to layer 5 so the option of using the EMR approach was out of the question.  More than likley what you have is a stage one.  From what I've read that's generally the limit for being able to use the process they did.  A wire loop on the end of a probe is wrapped around the raised polyp and pulled taught to cut it free. That's rather large so it must not have been anchored too well which is a huge plus for you.  Any more depth and you'd be visiting a linear accelerator, sucking down xeloda for several weeks, and looking forward to surgery months down the road.        

  • JayNY
    JayNY Member Posts: 4
    #5
    Thank you for eveyone's input

    Thank you for eveyone's input and support. Glad to hear you are all doing well. Annabelle, your story was very inspirational.

  • Annabelle41415
    Annabelle41415 Member Posts: 6,742 Member
    #6
    JayNY said:

    Thank you for eveyone's input

    Thank you for eveyone's input and support. Glad to hear you are all doing well. Annabelle, your story was very inspirational.

    Hope it Helps

    I've been on the boards for a long time so I've always tried to list my journey on my "about me" page for others to see.  Thank you for your kind words and hope it can give some comfort to your situation but remember every one is different.  I'm thankful that God gave me all these years to help others.

    Kim

  • JanJan63
    JanJan63 Member Posts: 2,478 Member
    #7
    Sounds Good

    To me that sounds very positive! My understanding of staging is that stage three involves lymph nodes and stage four involves other organs. I thing two is just the original cancer without any other involvement. Is there a stage one? I should look this up, I'm curious.

  • JayNY
    JayNY Member Posts: 4
    #8
    ed Aug 30, 2017 9:30 pm

    ed Aug 30, 2017 9:30 pm

    So...we met with the oncologist on monday. The cancer was staged as "in situ". That was awesome news and made sense based on the EUS determining it to be confined to the superficial mucosa. I had just hoped the pathology report told the same story which it did. At that point the oncologist said theres really no treatment necessary but recommended a colonoscopy followup just as the GI doctor had stated. Then she mentioned its good to have a ct scan as a baseline. My wife responds that she had just gotten one last Friday. The oncologist quickly gets the results faxed over. It stated that something was showing on the liver. She seemed unconcerned saying it is not possible for in situ cancer to spread. Probably benign lesions. Ugh...im just hoping thats all it is so we can move on. One was 2.5cm and two others were under 1cm she said so size wasnt recorded.
  • danker
    danker Member Posts: 1,276 Member
    #9
    Age & Stage

    It sounds like stage 1 and at your young age you should easily beat it.  Read my history and you will see I was 77 when I got my first colonoscopy.  I also have beat it. I am NED (no eveddence of disease) and currently 85!

  • beaumontdave
    beaumontdave Member Posts: 1,280 Member
    edited September 2017 #10
    JanJan63 said:

    Sounds Good

    To me that sounds very positive! My understanding of staging is that stage three involves lymph nodes and stage four involves other organs. I thing two is just the original cancer without any other involvement. Is there a stage one? I should look this up, I'm curious.

    The difference between stages

    The difference between stages 1&2 is just depth of the neoplasm, if it got through the colon wall or not.........................................Dave

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