Hello everyone. 2015 hasn't been a very normal year for me. I hesitate to say it's been a bad year because they caught my cancer early before it had spread out of the bowel. It wasn't in the lymph nodes nor blood supply and I was down staged from 2a to stage 1 post surgery.
I had chemo and radiation to begin my journey then a 6 hour operation to remove a very low rectal cancer. I'm currently on my last round of mop up chemo and I've begun the tests for stoma reversal that I hope will happen in Feburary/March of 2016.
A few weeks ago I had a gastrografin enema which was not painful but also not pleasant. I was on and off the loo over 24 hours - no one warned me beforehand but I'd managed to research it - the value of the Internet - and knew a little of what to expect. Anyway it did show me that everything was functioning as it should and, the best of all, I was continent in the face of an onslaught of diarrhoea. Every cloud has a silver lining. The test showed I was leak free thank god.
I've one more test to complete a Flexi sigmoidoscopy to make sure that the site is not too narrow and then I'm good to go.
I must confess to being nervous about the reversal as some stories I have read are alarming. I know that the first two weeks will be rough but that things settle with time. I'd be very interested in any experiences post reversal. Thank you in anticipation of some good results post reversal...and the challenging as well.
