Hi, I'm new to this group and this is my first post.
My 82 yo dad was diagnosed with bowel cancer in February 23 and now has a stoma and wears a colostomy bag.
We saw the surgeon for his first outpatient appointment yesterday. In her preliminary report she graded dad's tumour as T3 N0 M0. Yesterday she said that histology has shown that two nodes or cells have escaped ( sorry I'm being a bit vague but it was confusing). Anyway, at first she said dad would benefit from chemotherapy due to those nodes. He's now graded at T3 N1 M0. However, as we talked more with the surgeon and the oncology nurse, we kind of came to the conclusion that dad would be better off not having chemotherapy, especially as he's been so frail, has undergone major surgery, and feels well at the moment. They said that we needed to balance the benefit of the treatment versus the risk and quality versus quantity of life, and said the escaped cells might not amount to anything.
I guess I'm asking if anyone has had any experience of this? Just to add, Dad is pretty sure he doesn't want chemotherapy.
Thanks for reading.
Hi Diane DB
Sorry to hear about your dad but glad you found us on here.
Any decision around chemotherapy is always a challenge and you might like to look at Making Treatment decisions though of course the decision totally rests with your dad. Whatever decision is reached though is the right decision in this time but it can be a bit of a struggle some times if we do not always agree.
<<hugs>>
Steve
