New here and newly diagnosed.

Hello, my name is Deena and I am very happy I found this group. I am a cancer survivor, at least so far (newly diagnosed). We have 4 biological children, adopted one from foster care in 2008 and April of this year added two beautiful Russian girls to our family.

While in Russia, I started having some blood in my stool and when we came home I went to the doctor. They assumed it was a parasite. When the lab came back normal, we though we should see the colon doctor. My brother (34) has ulcerative colitis and so we assumed that was it. I had a colonoscopy scheduled and done July 16th. It came back with a tumor. 3cm by 17mm. It appeared to be completely contained. We had a ct scan soon after and everything came back clear but two small areas on my liver. I had a MRI with special dye that can tell if it is cancer or not and it came back that it was not. I also had normal labs and my cea was 0.8.

So I had surgery the 29th of July. They removed 15 inches of my colon and were able to reconnect it. The doctor did a massive incision to look around. The liver looked great as did everything else. The tumor appeared to be completely inside the colon. The doctor said, we had to wait for the path report, but he would say, stage 1 and I was cured. No chemo, no radiation!

So 4 days post op, I was doing great and feeling good, only taking toradol. The doc came in and said out of the 27 lymph nodes they got, 11 had cancer. So I went from stage 1 to stage 3. Though I did get to go home that day. (I was told 7 days, and it was 4)

So I am healing and then I will get a port in a few weeks and start low dose chemo combined with radiation on Sept 17th. I will have 28 doses (mon-fri, 5 1/2 weeks). The pump will stay in during that time. Then I will get a 3 week break and then start chemo. I will have 12 doses every other week.

I am told this type of chemo does not usually cause hair loss, and many of his clients work full time. I do not work, but I do have 6 children still at home.

So I am very thankful that we caught this. I am only 38, I was not even due a colonoscopy yet. I am thankful that it was not caught sooner, because my girls would have been stuck in Russia still. It was like God knew they were safe and then said, okay, you need to know. I started having symptoms after court to finalize. I am thankful for a very skilled physician and that we did not know it had spread before, because they would have done radiation first and I would have had to have a colostomy. So they were able to reconnect everything. I am thankful for the amazing support. I had surgery 3 weeks ago and tonight is the first night we have had to cook (my Sunday school class brought meals.) I have an amazing friend that is paying for a housekeeper to come once a week to help with deep cleaning. I have a wonderful family that has been amazing.

I am looking forward to getting to know you guys and getting more information as I have just started this journey.

I will try not to give scripture too much because I know it can be offensive to some and I do not want that. But after I found out, I wanted to read a Psalm for comfort and I was born is 71, so I just chose 71. The whole thing is very inspiring, but especially the first 3 verses:

Psalm 71
1In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.

2Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline thine ear unto me, and save me.

3Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress.