New Member and a Question

We did several things for my wife, who had an obstructing sigmoid colon cancer and turned out to be metastatic with a number of mets, after some initial confusions.   She has greatly exceeeded all expectations by years, especially for her biomarkers and  (bad) real estate.

First we mostly followed several Life Extension Foundation cancer articles on surgery, supplements, cimetidine and eventually celecoxib.  Even (much) higher on vitamin C and vitamin D3. Especially cimetidine before and after surgery - even during surgery for the second surgery, prescribed by the second surgeon.  Basically "standard medicine" is 20 years behind on these things.

Some of the LEF articles recommended extra blood markers and panels beyond CEA, we have found CA19-9 and CEA before and ca a week after surgery especially important. We also monitor CA19-9 and LDH continually with ESR and/or hsCRP and others to track and treat her cancer better. Serum CA19-9 correlates a lot with BRAF and KRAS mutant CRC cells.  Some cancer clinics use extra markers to more thoroughly assess their patients and are discussed in the medical literature. 

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An initial total colostomy is uncommon, it sounds drastic. If the testing for Lynch Syndrome is positive, which implies MSI-high, a new recommendation may be one of the new anti-PD1 drugs.  Keytruda, aka pembrolizumab,  is now FDA approved for all  MSI-high cancers, making it elgible for insurance coverage too.

I think if you read through some of the symptoms people have after removing a large section of the colon, you will think that keeping as much of it as possible is a good idea.  Initially I was supposed to have 50% removed, but they only needed to take out 25% which allowed me to retain normal bowel function, which I consider very fortunate.  Doing annual colonoscopies would be a small price to pay for keeping a large part of your digestive tract.  Doctors say that the colon serves no real function than removing moisture from the waste products, but I think they are wrong.  Every part of the body has an important fuction and in my opinion you should keep as much of your body intact as you can.  I echo the earlier comments that you should request a second opinion and try to get the best qualified surgeon you can find.  Best of luck.

That's a great present considering our circumstances.  Happy Birthday and congrats. 

Enjoy life and live !

  And congrats for all of the good news. 

Tru