My life has been destroyed in the space of a few weeks. The mystery GI illness that I'd complained to dr after dr about, even going to A&E and being sent away, turns out to be a large tumour partially blocking my bowel and also infiltrating my stomach. I've lost a lot of weight and am now 5st 5 (I'm 4ft 11) and the oncologist said I'm borderline for chemotherapy because I'm so frail. He'll make a decision in 3 weeks. Without chemo he said I've got maybe 6 months. With it, maybe 2-3 years. A 10% chance that the chemo works enough to have surgery to remove it. I went in to this meeting thinking I was having chemo then surgery, that this was the plan, as that's what the surgeon who diagnosed me told me just over a week before. I was totally blindsided, being told I may not even get chemo, let alone surgery. I'm 41, how can they consider denying me treatment?
My colonoscopy was postponed for 3 months due to the hospital cancelling testing for coronavirus, this delayed my diagnosis and gave the tumour more time to grow and also my body weight to drop half a stone. If they had found it when they should have done - I did everything right, I kept going back, I told every dr that there was a history of bowel cancer in my family - then I would have been stronger to fight it.
I've got a 3 week course of steroids and I need to put weight on in that time, not easy when the illness I've been complaining about to doctors for 9 months keeps making me sick, giving me vicious stomach pains and low grade nausea all the time meaning I have no appetite.
I am going to try with everything I have to put some weight on. They cannot do this to me, I need that chemo and I refuse to shut up and die quietly
Hi and a very warm welcome to the online community
I'm very sorry to read that you've recently been diagnosed with cancer and I do understand what a worrying time this will be for you.
From what you've said in your post I think you have bowel cancer which has spread to your stomach but I'll apologise now if I've got that wrong. Although mine was a different type of cancer, I know the worry and uncertainty you'll be feeling especially when treatment can't begin immediately.
The community is divided up into groups, so I'm going to recommend that you join the bowel cancer group where you can ask questions, share experiences and get support from others who will understand exactly what you're going through.
To join just click on the link I've created and then choose 'join this group' on the page that opens. You can then introduce yourself and post questions after selecting 'start a discussion' and join in with existing conversations by clicking on 'reply'. To save you typing out this initial post again just copy and paste it into a new post in the bowel cancer group.
If I've misinterpreted the type of cancer you have then please let me know and I'll provide a link to the appropriate one. Alternatively, if you click here it will take you to a list of the cancer specific groups within the community.
When you have a minute, it would be really useful if you could pop something about your journey so far into your profile as it really helps others when answering or looking for someone with a similar diagnosis. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. To do this click on your username and then select 'Edit Profile'. You can amend it at any time and if you're not sure what to write you can take a look at mine by clicking on my username.
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"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
