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

just4Brooks
just4Brooks Member Posts: 980 Member
I thought it might be fun (or maybe not) to hear some stories about how others found out that they had Colorectal Cancer.

For me it was right after I had my colonoscopy. I woke up to find my wife talking to the doctor and my wife was crying. Right then I knew it had to be cancer and it was. The doctor told me that she took a biopsy of the tumor but after doing this for 25 years she didn't have to wait for the results. She said I have cancer and it looks like it's bad. I was staged about 2 weeks later (that was the longest 2 weeks in my life)and sure enough it was Advanced stage 3 colorectal cancer.

So what's your story?

Brooks
«13

Comments

  • Lovekitties
    Lovekitties Member Posts: 3,364 Member
    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
  • Kenny H.
    Kenny H. Member Posts: 502 Member

    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.
  • Annabelle41415
    Annabelle41415 Member Posts: 6,742 Member
    Hospital
    Went in for a colonoscopy day before Thanksgiving because of rectal bleeding and PCP thought it was just a hemorrhoid but heard the doctor say she didn't see one and wanted me back the following Monday for another scope. It was the worst Thanksgiving ever.

    Kim
  • PhillieG
    PhillieG Member Posts: 4,866 Member
    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
  • abrub
    abrub Member Posts: 2,174 Member
    When I was brought to my
    When I was brought to my room post-op from a "routine" hysterectomy, my dr and husband came in and told me I had metastatic appendix cancer.

    I went in for a hysterectomy because of some odd fibroids. Blood tests for ovarian and uterine cancer had come back normal; I'd had my first colonoscopy 6 weeks prior and it was clear. My gyn decided that I should get the fibroids out as they were causing some problems. However, I was assured going in to surgery that the likelihood of cancer was virtually nil. My dr found a tumor encompassing my ovary, and the frozen section during surgery showed it to be a cancer of appendiceal origin.

    It was several weeks before I got in to see an oncologist, and then his advice was that I get to a specialty center, so it was several more weeks before that. And so my journey began....

    Alice
  • joemetz
    joemetz Member Posts: 493
    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.
  • just4Brooks
    just4Brooks Member Posts: 980 Member
    PhillieG said:

    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

    LOL@Phil, Yes, not fun

    LOL@Phil, Yes, not fun
  • tommycat
    tommycat Member Posts: 790 Member
    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.
  • carrieh
    carrieh Member Posts: 146 Member
    I have horrible cell service
    I have horrible cell service where I live so I pulled into my dads driveway while I was waiting for the results (2 days after colonoscopy). I didn't want to worry him so I said I was texting and wanted to be safe.

    I got the news; got out of the car and burst into hysterical tears. He just hugged me and looked shocked. My brother died when he was 5 from cancer/ I'm 32 now...I guess we kind of thought we had made it out of the woods? I told him I promised I would make it..somebody upstairs just forgot to carry a one or something when they were calculating things..it would work itself out.

    It was a sunny day

    Carrie
  • annalexandria
    annalexandria Member Posts: 2,571 Member
    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".
  • JayhawkDan
    JayhawkDan Member Posts: 205
    not like in the movies
    I had a colonoscopy on Jan. 20, this year, and met with the -oscopy doc the following Monday. My wife and I are sitting in the exam room and the kindly old doc comes in -- he's probably 75-ish -- and looks like his dog just died. He hands me the pathology report and asks me to read it. He couldn't even tell me. The word "adenocarcinoma" stood out and I knew I was in trouble. My wife was sitting a couple of feet away and all I said was "that doesn't sound good." And he said "indeed, it's not." Told me to find a surgeon. Called my gp's office when I got home and said I need to see him. And the receptionist said that he has an opening in a couple of weeks. I just said, you don't understand, I need to see him today, and told her the news I had just received. They got me in that afternoon and he looked at the pathology report and sent me for scans a couple of days later. A couple of days after that we were at the oncologist recommended by my gp, and about 10 seconds into his dx he said "you'll be on chemo for the rest of your life." My first thought was, "chemo for 30 years, uggh." But he soon followed up with telling us it was "terminal." Not sure what else he said, something about trials, treatment, stage iV, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I went from thinking I had gastritis to a doctor telling me I was going to die. All in less than 2 weeks. But I disagree and plan on being around for awhile -- especially the more I learn about CRC, mostly from this board, and others. Damn right I will!

    Dan
  • herdizziness
    herdizziness Member Posts: 3,624 Member
    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
  • mskautz
    mskautz Member Posts: 30

    not like in the movies
    I had a colonoscopy on Jan. 20, this year, and met with the -oscopy doc the following Monday. My wife and I are sitting in the exam room and the kindly old doc comes in -- he's probably 75-ish -- and looks like his dog just died. He hands me the pathology report and asks me to read it. He couldn't even tell me. The word "adenocarcinoma" stood out and I knew I was in trouble. My wife was sitting a couple of feet away and all I said was "that doesn't sound good." And he said "indeed, it's not." Told me to find a surgeon. Called my gp's office when I got home and said I need to see him. And the receptionist said that he has an opening in a couple of weeks. I just said, you don't understand, I need to see him today, and told her the news I had just received. They got me in that afternoon and he looked at the pathology report and sent me for scans a couple of days later. A couple of days after that we were at the oncologist recommended by my gp, and about 10 seconds into his dx he said "you'll be on chemo for the rest of your life." My first thought was, "chemo for 30 years, uggh." But he soon followed up with telling us it was "terminal." Not sure what else he said, something about trials, treatment, stage iV, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I went from thinking I had gastritis to a doctor telling me I was going to die. All in less than 2 weeks. But I disagree and plan on being around for awhile -- especially the more I learn about CRC, mostly from this board, and others. Damn right I will!

    Dan

    where were you?
    went to the dr's jan 31 to get my hemroid checked out, he did a simply exam and said he'd been doing this a lot of years and it looks like cancer and left the room. had to sit there a few minutes and get it together as my 17 year old daughter was in the waiting room. he scheduled a colonoscopy for feb 10th and when i was leaving the nurse said, i will pray for you. so i new, but i got the diagnosis on feb 14, happy valentines day! had my resection on march 28 and its been fun every since. they say it is stage 3 and it was superficial but still worried as hell...and still a lot of treatment ahead.
  • omrhill
    omrhill Member Posts: 125
    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.
  • barbebarb
    barbebarb Member Posts: 464

    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

    In my car
    After I had the colonoscopy and had recovered the gastro Dr touched my arm and said we'll have the result in a couple days. My daughter was with me (a high schooler at the time) I work at a hospital so I requetsted a copy of my report and read it on a cold Jan. night in my car by myself. I then went home and told my kids and husband at the time and we cried.
    I had my stools tested for blood in the fall for blood and that was negative. I tried to schedule a routine colonoscopy before end of 2007 and they had too many routine ones due to insurance end of year scheduled.
    During the fall of 2007 we were chasing my diagnosis of MS, which I didn't have the guts to get the lumbar puncture to confirm until April 2008, after my surgery in Feb., a lower bowel resection to remove the polyp.
    So far I have not been symptomatic with MS but the medication is expensive and I thought this would be my biggest concern.
  • Momof2plusteentwins
    Momof2plusteentwins Member Posts: 509 Member
    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
  • steveandnat
    steveandnat Member Posts: 886
    at the dr office
    I had a bloodf tests done including colonospy and was called to Dr office. I was there by myself and he told me it was cancer. He immediately set up appointment with oncologist. Needlless to say I was in shock...couldn't hold back the tears when I broke the news to my wife. Nothing has been the same. That was in June 2009. So here we are 3 years later colon..liver..lungs..still.fighting. pray we all fight this awful cancer to the best of our ability. Jeff
  • Helen321
    Helen321 Member Posts: 1,459 Member
    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.
  • thxmiker
    thxmiker Member Posts: 1,278 Member
    The first time, I went in
    The first time, I went in for a stomach ache to my GP. He asked me to wait for a few minutes because he was going to have lunch with a friend and wanted his friend to see me. I had surgery 3 hours later.

    The second time we were vacationing in Arizona, and I had a stomach ache that as horrible. My wife drove me down 150 miles to Phoenix and we stopped in a hospital. The first Doc talked to me and told me to drive 8 miles further down the road to another hospital. Little did we know it was a colon specialty hospital! I had a great surgeon find 4 tumors, two were smaller then 4mm! I would probably not be here if not for that surgeon!

    Best Always, mike
  • Joy1216
    Joy1216 Member Posts: 290 Member
    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