Where were you when you found out you had ColoRectal cancer?

Lovekitties said:

Hi Brooks
I was at the surgeons office for what I thought was "just" a fistula.

After the exam he left the room long enough for me to dress and came out with "I am 99% sure you have cancer" and here is what we are going to do about it.

Good thing I am a believer in "tell it like it is".

Marie who loves kitties

At colonoscopy center dr
At colonoscopy center dr office. May 17th, 2010. Will never forget that day and my life has changed and totally different ever since! endless blood draws, dr appts, surgeries ect! you know the drill.

Not Sure if "Fun" is the Right Word...
but I get your point Brooks
;-)
Feb 25, 2004: I was home, my wife was at work. My sister-in-law was over and our kids were playing.
I got a phone call saying I have Stage IV CC after spending the day getting a sonogram then a CT scan...

I wish I could say "I walked into a bar with a Rabbi and a Priest and a duck under my arm..."
-phil

my story
I went for blood work as we had been chasing "Gout" for about 3 months.
I was run down and tired a lot... but i thought it was because i was overweight and out of shape.

Had radiation to kill non-hodkins lymphoma cancer back in 1989.
Last radiation treatment was March 3, 1990.

Blood work showed White Blood Count over 1,200, Hemaglobin at 7.8, and CEA level of 65.
I had no idea what this all meant, but my primary doc had a pretty good idea.

Had a CT scan of the heart, and that's when they saw the top of the liver.
two days later another CT scan of the liver and colon area.
30 mets to the liver largest one was 7.5cm x 6cm x 5cm

After 22 weeks of folfox, Erbitux, Oxiliplatin, & Leucavorin... the mets in the liver are all smaller that 1cm. Its' working!!!

surgery this month to remove the Bag!!! and reconnect my colon and remove the dead tumor in the colon.

by the way... my colon cancer.... caused by Radiation from 1990!
Doc told me that no one in their right mind will ever radiate someone as much as I recieved back then.

crazy cancer and crazy treatments to remove it.

Dx's November 2011
Colon Cancer stage IV with mets to the liver.

My fun time
My journey began with a trip to the GP who said I had an anal fissure, then to the ob/gyn who said I had internal hemmaroids, then the urgent care, where I was sent home with a receptacle to poop in and bring back to be tested for a virus.
Lab couldn't detect this mysterious virus so a sigmoidoscpoy was scheduled at 10am the following day. I drove myself there where the the doctor performing the procedure audibly sighed and said he hated to see cancer in people my age.
Wait, Cancer????
I went into a corner and sat in a chair couldn't say a word....the hospital called my husband to come in immediately, and he came and we went home--then went to the movies to let it all settle in.
That was June 24th, 2009, and my twins had recently turned 4 yrs old.

tommycat said:

My fun time
My journey began with a trip to the GP who said I had an anal fissure, then to the ob/gyn who said I had internal hemmaroids, then the urgent care, where I was sent home with a receptacle to poop in and bring back to be tested for a virus.
Lab couldn't detect this mysterious virus so a sigmoidoscpoy was scheduled at 10am the following day. I drove myself there where the the doctor performing the procedure audibly sighed and said he hated to see cancer in people my age.
Wait, Cancer????
I went into a corner and sat in a chair couldn't say a word....the hospital called my husband to come in immediately, and he came and we went home--then went to the movies to let it all settle in.
That was June 24th, 2009, and my twins had recently turned 4 yrs old.

Major misdiagnosis for 7 months...
my GP thought I had lupus, largely based on the fact that his wife had lupus (he seemed to be living in an episode of "House"). Luckily for me, my tumor got bored, ate its way through my colon and went exploring the neighborhood. The resulting peritonitis led to the ER, and emergency surgery. Seemed miraculously cured of lupus post-surgery, and no one told me a tumor had been found. Happy couple of weeks! Until...got a phone call from my doctor's nurse, asking for me and my husband to come and see the doctor on his lunch hour. NOT a good sign. The call came just before my kids left for school, so they knew something bad was going down (my sister had died a couple of years before, so cancer was on everyone's radar...except my doc, i guess). When we got to his office, he hemmed and hawed about "growths" and what-not, until I finally said "If I understand you correctly, you're saying I have cancer." He was very relieved that I was the one willing to bring up the C word. Took several more weeks to get pathology results (my tumor got to travel to MA to see the "world's foremost pathologist"...that little bugger is better traveled than I am!), and the dx of "not your garden variety of colon cancer".

Emergency Room
I looked up on the internet my symptoms before I went to the ER, it was either appendicitis or colon cancer. I was betting on colon cancer because appendicitis didn't last for 6 months of pain in the side. My pain had got so unbearable that I couldn't sit, couldn't lay, couldn't stand to get rid of the darn sharp pain in the side. I was hoping for pain pills.
I got the pain pills and the diagnosis of colon cancer at midnight, walked out to my truck, smoked a cigarette (well, actually many of them)just repeating the same word over and over, "SH!T". Then got in my truck, drove home, and waited until mid-morning to break the news to family. Weird night indeed.
Winter Marie
DX 02/06/2010
Stage IV Terminal Colon Cancer

Friday, April 13th - at the
Friday, April 13th - at the colonoscopy center - "you have a tumor in your rectum, i'm going to call the surgeon. why don't you go back to sleep?" Seriously. I haven't slept well since.

omrhill said:

Friday, April 13th - at the
Friday, April 13th - at the colonoscopy center - "you have a tumor in your rectum, i'm going to call the surgeon. why don't you go back to sleep?" Seriously. I haven't slept well since.

April 11, 2012
That date changed my life and my family. I had a colonoscopy scheduled for about a month after having poop problems for about 6 months. After the colonoscopy the dr said he found a large tumor in my rectum. He said he biopsied it but he was sure it was cancer. Surgery is June 19th.
Sandy

Bleeding in December, wasn't
Bleeding in December, wasn't too worried, thought hemmorhoids were getting really bad. Then I found a cane corso and I only know a little about dogs (she was a HUGE dog and was dirty and looked very old. Turns out she was only 7 and just a neglected breeder dog who was thrown out - she's being adopted this week -- http://www.canecorsorescue.org/2012/02/mystery-nj-adultfemale.html?utm_source=BP_recent -- for any dog lovers). Anyway, my cat does not like dogs and vice versa so I kept her in my garage until it dropped to 24 degrees so I had to move all my son's furniture out of his room and put the dog in there. Was working full time and then some, running a family and unexpectedly taking care of a huge dog. Turned out the dog has roundworms which people can get so I had the dog treated. When the bleeding got heavier I figured I had roundworms. Finally found the dog a rescue that would take her and got myself to a GI for colonscopy immediately after waiting to hear about my roundworms. No roundworms. He sees a growth and some polyps, we have a conversation about how my GP should never have performed a sigmoidoscopy because he was not equipped to remove polys and now there's a growth,, says we'll see and then calls with results while I'm at work "It's malignant one two three, you'll remove it and move on" with the biggest smile through the phone. I was at work and I work a lot of hours and am always tired so all I really heard was his happy tone saying one two three you're done, you should remove this right away and I thought okay cool one two three I'm done. Didn't make the malignant wording connection. Went to the surgeon a week later all smiley thinking I was just having a simple procedure to have a growth removed. Surgeon starts talking about cancer and I said wait I'm confused and he said why do you think you are here today so I know we're on the same page? And he said this is why I wish doctors would just flat out say you have cancer. My GI told me so happily that I had it. Left the surgeons office, sat in front of the most beautiful river crying while thinking about the people in their waterfront homes and people out on the boats and how life looked so perfectly beautiful with the water and the sun but suddenly my life felt upside down. Sat in front of the same river crying when I heard the surgery didn't work. It really is a beautiful river.

How I found out
After my first screening colonoscopy, the gastroenterologist took my husband and I into a conference room. He said that he had found a polyp that was too large to remove and that I'd have to have surgery to remove it, probably by laparoscopy (boy was he wrong!). He had blood taken to check my CEA (my first clue it was cancer) and told me to schedule a CT scan for the surgeon and to schedule an appointment with my GP in about 10 days to go over all the results and for me to contact a surgeon (I used the surgeon who had taken out my gall bladder - he was also an oncological surgeon but I didn't know it). He also biopsied the polyp. I read in the literature that the gastro gave me that most large polyps contain cancer. I totally disregarded that statement (my second clue it was cancer). Two days later the gastro's office called me at home and said they found cancer cells in the polyp. I felt like I'd been hit by a freight train. I was very fortunate to be diagnosed at Stage 1. Six years later there have been no recurrences.
Joy