New here and scared to death. Would appreciate input?

Hi Roxie,

I am sorry you have to be here but glad you found us so quickly. You have found a great wealth of information and folks who understand what you are going through. I am sorry for the long novel that is about to follow, but I tried to include most everything you should expect.

To my knowledge (I've been wrong before) a polyp is a tumor. I think the term polyp just refers to the type of tumor. Anyway, my oncologist, gastro, and surgeon all referred to my polyp as a tumor.

You did the right thing in getting the bleeding checked out right away. That is how I discovered my cancer. Mine also started from a polyp.

First, you need to take a deep breath. I know it is hard right after being diagnosed, but important. I know you are expecting the worst. We all do. You will likely expect the worst with every new symptom. Just know that most everyone on this site has expected the worst and turned out fine. Cancer is no longer the death sentence it used to be. It is no fun, but you can make it through a winner.

Next, you are your own best advocate. Ask questions until you are satisfied with your answers. Even if this means getting a second or even third opinion. It is very important to trust and agree with your treating team. Remember, they work for you; not the other way around.

Knowledge is power. Learn what you can about what exactly cancer is and how it can be prevented and cured (i.e. nutrition, excercise, lifestyle changes, etc). Please try your best to ignore statistics. They are outdated and generalized. There are many new drugs and approaches to treating cancer now and people are living stable (no progress of disease) or NED (no evidence of disease). I am a 2 year 3 month survivor of stage III (had one lymph node involved). You can make it through this.

For surgery, you need to get up walking around as soon as possible as much as possible. Depending on what type of pain management is given to you, this might mean the very next day. This is important to your healing and to getting your bowels back in order after the HUGE shock of surgery. You will likely be on an NG tube until your bowels are working and you are passing gas to remove waste that is naturally generated even without food or water. After a couple of days and your bowels are starting to wake up, you will be put on a liquid diet and progress from there to solid food. I think the average hospital stay is roughly one week.

Your oncologist will probably have you rest and heal as much as possible before chemo, if chemo is required. I think the general time is 4-6 weeks for most colon cancer treatments.

When you find out what type of treatment you will be on, ask again what people went through. Just remember that everyone is different and each treatment may leave you feeling different as well. However, there are some pretty typical side effects that most have dealt with.

My prayers are with you.

Tricia

PS Post as often as you need or want. We have all been there and done that. No question is too gross or too dumb. If you need to vent, we are good listeners.

Take care!

Ahoy, Roxie -

Welcome to the SemiColons - of course you aren't and "official" semicolon until after surgery, but I'm sure folks willcut you some slack!

Anyway, Tricia and Ron gave you a lot of great info. You'd never find that sort of good scoop distilled into one page in ANY medical pamphlet!

The one thing I would add is that it sounds as though they caught your cancer very early and that's a very good thing!

Hang tough and know you are among friends here.

Be well.

- SpongeBob

Hi and Welcome,

To try to answer your question, not all polyps are or even become malignant tumors, but colon/rectal cancer arises from some polyps in some people. Since you've already been told it's malignant your doctors will run additional tests to determine if the cancer has spread. After surgery they will "stage" the tumor to determine the extent of the depth of the cancer into the wall of the colon, and also if it's spread to any lymph nodes or other parts of the body. The Stage (1-4) will give an indication of the type of follow-up treatment needed (if any), and the prognosis.

There are folks here with experience in every stage and who've gone through it all. They will be a good resource for you going forward if you need it. Don't forget to ask your doctors (oncologist, surgeon) any questions you have. Always bring someone with you to any oncologist/surgeon visits. Once we hear we have the "C" word, we tend to miss important information being said.

Good luck!

Howard

Hi Roxie46,

I'm with the others, you are so FINE (other then hearing the big c word, that scares the **** out of all of us) catching it early. After the surgery, they will be able to appropriately tell you what stage which then tells you how serious it is. Has your doc talked about CT or PET scans? I am guessing they discovered the cancerous polyp after they removed it, is that right? I'm asking because that means your surgery is preventative, which is great. You'll understand more later as it all sinks in, the first few months are really tough.

Ask questions here, these people are very smart, helpful and pretty awesome.

Lisa P.