Reoccurence Symptoms

You can have a recurrence of your cancer at any time. Some even have recurrences in other places while they're undergoing treatment.  Trust your feelings and go get rechecked a.s.a.p.  I had abdominal pain about 4 mos. after finishing chemo.  It came on suddenly while I was exercising on my Pilates.  I reported it to my oncologist and his PA, but it was a long time before it was diagnosed by my GYN/onc. (in a different hospital) as an incisional hernia.  I got surgery done on that, and a couple of years later, I had abd. pain again, which felt like my hernia had come back.  I told my PA at my family doctor's office, who had a CT scan done on me.  That showed a tiny mass in my paracolic gutter.  Then I had a PET scan which showed the same thing and I was sent off to see what my GYN/onc. had to say about it.  He said the mass was too small to biopsy and he doubted he would even be able to find it if he went in through my side. He took a wait and see attitude, checking with CT scans at 3 mos., 6 mos., and a year.  At that point, it hadn't grown, and maybe even looked a little smaller, so he said it couldn't be cancer (cancer ALWAYS grows).  My CA-125 went up slightly the following year and a little more in Feb. of last year, but it was still in the normal range.  I happened to have a positive hemoccult test at my family doctor's office, so I was sent for a colonoscopy.  That found a mass growing on the outside of my colon which the camera inside my colong picked up.  In the two months follosing my slightly elevated CA-125, my cancer grew like crazy.  It turned out my intestines had grown into the mesh from my surgery, so I had to have a resection of my intestines for that, new mesh put in to replace my abdominal wall, plus a resection of my ascending colon to remove the cancer that was wrapped around it. 

Other than the abdominal pain, the only other symptom I had (which I hadn't recognized at the time) was narrowing of my stools.  I wasn't able to see the blood in my stools at all.  If you're having any bleeding that you can see or any abdominal pain (or any other symptoms that you question), be sure to get checked out.  Most cancers tend to come back within two years, I understand.  i don't know why mine took so long to return.  I'm now between 7 and 8 years out from my original surgery, and my GYN/onc. acted like he thought my UPSC would be back in another five years or so.  He said that I was lucky that my recurrence was all in the same general area (ascending colon, peritoneum, and paracolic gutter) and that chemo put me into remission so fast.  He said most recurrences are more widespread and chemo may or may not work on them.  He said some people can tolerate having chemo 8 times and some people can't even tolerate a second one.  The earlier you get it checked out, the less far it has a chance to spread.