Two years after Colorectal Cancer

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20anne
20anne Member Posts: 1
edited March 2014 in Colorectal Cancer #1
I was diagnosed with colorectal cancer (stage 111) 2 years ago. After surgery I started chemo but I made the decision to to stop after suffering heart problems. A big decision and maybe a huge risk, but 2 years on I am clear of the cancer and feeling healthier than I have felt for a long time. Being diagnosed with cancer forces you to change your lifestyle i.e. diet, exercise, throwing yourself into all those enjoyable things you meant to do years ago. All of this alone can make you feel better. I am not recommending that people refuse chemo and if anyone does think about stopping chemo make sure you have long talks with an oncologist, doctor, family. I have been lucky so far but still have another 3 years to go before I know that I made the right decision.

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  • John23
    John23 Member Posts: 2,122 Member
    #2
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    20anne
    You are not the only one that has gone that route, and hopefully
    you won't be the last. There are many, many of us out here that
    decided for ourselves, what is best for us..

    And you're right, it's a difficult choice to buck the system or not....

    The facts:

    *It takes a cancer cell 1 to 2 years to grow large enough to identify.

    *Chemo cannot kill what it can not differentiate; if the cell cannot
    be detected from it's surrounding good cells, chemo is useless.

    *The effectiveness of chemo is rated in only months, weeks or days
    that might be added to the assumed statistical survival time versus
    not taking chemo.

    My cancer grew inside me for what they said was between 7 and 8
    years to get that large, never giving any indication it was there until
    it totally obstructed my colon.

    I asked when should I have gotten a colonoscopy 7 years ago
    that might have prevented it.... and their answer was unique....

    It probably didn't get big enough to see until perhaps 3 or 4 years
    ago. And although early detection could have saved me an ileostomy,
    the survival rates remain the same.

    Or to say it more simply....and according to the very latest research
    (UK and Scandinavian studies), we're not "living longer" after diagnosis,
    we're just being diagnosed earlier.

    You're not alone with the choice you made, and you're not the only
    one that's still here to talk about it.

    And it's something that should be talked about..... loudly!


    Stay well, we -all- need you here!


    John
  • PhillieG
    PhillieG Member Posts: 4,866 Member
    #3
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    Great News
    I am glad that you are feeling well. Deciding what to do after being diagnosed is a hard thing to do. It's always open to second guessing. The thing is that we don't know how things will turn out if we chose option B instead of option A. I believe the important thing is to be comfortable with what we chose.

    Did you make the right decision? All I can say is that you made the right decision for you. Cancer is not one disease, it's many diseases and that makes it very hard to kill/treat. Some cancers grow faster than others, some are easier to detect early on that others, some are easy to diagnose but they may not have symptoms so you don't know if you should be tested. Colon cancer falls under that last one. You can be stage IV and feel great and have no symptoms like was the case with me. I caught it by chance, if I waited until I felt bad I do not think I would be here. Also, if I did not do follow up chemo I believe that I would not be here. The risk was worth the benefits for me. If I were suffering heart problems I have little doubt that I could have made different decisions regarding my treatment.

    If one decides to have surgery to deal with cancer, then there is also the question of whether to have chemo afterwards. There are pros and cons to it and no guarantees. That's just life in general. I disagree with some of the things John states as facts but that's nothing new for us to disagree. People are living longer after diagnosis, but it's not just that they are being diagnosed earlier. Chemo CAN help people. It can also NOT be of any help to people. Doing nothing or alternate treatments CAN help people and also can NOT help people. It really is that simple. We are all different and will react differently to treatment or lack of treatment.

    Being off chemo can make one feel great, there's no doubt about that at all. I'm glad that you are feeling well and doing the things you love to do. Everyone should try to do that. Sometimes it takes something like cancer to remind us of that sometimes it doesn't. Judging from your post you seem to have made the right decision for you.
    It's not something to be taken lightly at all, you often don't get "do-overs".
    Best wishes to you Anne
    -phil
  • Nana b
    Nana b Member Posts: 3,030 Member
    #4
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    PhillieG said:

    Great News
    I am glad that you are feeling well. Deciding what to do after being diagnosed is a hard thing to do. It's always open to second guessing. The thing is that we don't know how things will turn out if we chose option B instead of option A. I believe the important thing is to be comfortable with what we chose.

    Did you make the right decision? All I can say is that you made the right decision for you. Cancer is not one disease, it's many diseases and that makes it very hard to kill/treat. Some cancers grow faster than others, some are easier to detect early on that others, some are easy to diagnose but they may not have symptoms so you don't know if you should be tested. Colon cancer falls under that last one. You can be stage IV and feel great and have no symptoms like was the case with me. I caught it by chance, if I waited until I felt bad I do not think I would be here. Also, if I did not do follow up chemo I believe that I would not be here. The risk was worth the benefits for me. If I were suffering heart problems I have little doubt that I could have made different decisions regarding my treatment.

    If one decides to have surgery to deal with cancer, then there is also the question of whether to have chemo afterwards. There are pros and cons to it and no guarantees. That's just life in general. I disagree with some of the things John states as facts but that's nothing new for us to disagree. People are living longer after diagnosis, but it's not just that they are being diagnosed earlier. Chemo CAN help people. It can also NOT be of any help to people. Doing nothing or alternate treatments CAN help people and also can NOT help people. It really is that simple. We are all different and will react differently to treatment or lack of treatment.

    Being off chemo can make one feel great, there's no doubt about that at all. I'm glad that you are feeling well and doing the things you love to do. Everyone should try to do that. Sometimes it takes something like cancer to remind us of that sometimes it doesn't. Judging from your post you seem to have made the right decision for you.
    It's not something to be taken lightly at all, you often don't get "do-overs".
    Best wishes to you Anne
    -phil

    I had a colonoscopy five
    I had a colonoscopy five years before I was diagnosed, stage 4. My tumor grew rapidly or it was missed five years ago!

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