Oncology Appointment

Hi Meg  , when you’ve asked all the Qs that you’ve thought of, a good one to finish on is “what would you ask if you were in my position?”  Good luck  x  toni

Hi I used to take a list of questions in as my mind would sort of go blank. Your scan results will have been discussed at a Multi-Disciplinary Team meeting (MDT) which is attended by your Oncologist, surgeon, colo-rectal nurses etc. The Oncologist will be able to give you any staging of cancer and most importantly what the plan is for treatment. I would ask what the intended start date is for the treatment, once I had that date I felt a lot better, it was something to work towards. If you are presented with different treatment options you may need time to think about what to do. You can ask for some time to do that  if you need to and have a follow up telephone appointment with your Oncologist. I also found it helpful to write down some things in the appointment so I didn't forget them when I came out. Bev x

PS I would also ask for details of who your colorectal nurse is and her/his contact details. Mine was very good  at answering any queries I had throughout treatment. 

Hi Meg (),

To be honest I didn’t ask hardly anything at my appointment I have a wonderful oncologist that had everything covered & there was so much information to take in I was quite dumbstruck for once in my life! All I would say is anything that you feel you may want to ask jot down in a notebook & if you can make a note of the answer too as like I say there’s quite a lot of information to take in & sometimes it’s easy to forget. 

Good luck with your appointment. 

Nicola 

Toni, Bev, Nicola,

Thank you for the suggestions for my oncology appointment. I found out today that the MRI and CT scans show no evidence of spread to lymph nodes or other parts of the body.  There does seem to still be some discrepancy about what stage I am. The surgeon says stage 1 but the oncologist says stage 2. Is that unusual?  I was told by the surgeon that the cancer cells are poorly differentiated. Has anyone heard of that or know what it is? I am so relieved that the cancer hasn’t spread anywhere else. Thank you  so much for continuing to come to the forum to help us newbies. It’s so appreciated!

 Hi Meg, these links from Cancer Research UK are the clearest explanations of staging I’ve seen:

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/anal-cancer/stages-types

Scroll down for TNM staging & a bit further down for stage numbers.

I’ve no idea what “poorly differentiated” means but it sounds like a kind of back-handed compliment  x  toni

Hi Meg (),

Thats great news that you’ve been picked up so early & that there’s no evidence of any spread. I think possibly the discrepancy will be because surgeon will be staging you on the size & location of your tumour & the oncologist will be assessing  at a cellular level maybe. The differentiation of cancer cells describes their appearance compared to normal cells under a microscope as far as I’m aware. 

So do you now have a treatment plan in place? 

Nicola 

Hi not so much questions but please take a note pad and pen. It’s amazing how you forget things otherwise (or maybe it’s just me) and writing things down sometimes distances you from the emotion of the moment. Again maybe just me.

I would ask them to take you through the next steps and definitely the timeframe for each. Waiting is the worst bit so have a clear timeframe so you know when to push if things slide.

good luck

Hi  that is good news that it is contained. Nicola is correct about the meaning of differentiated cancer cells. When I was diagnosed, they told me I had moderately differentiated cells. I did a bit of research on this and from what I could see it doesn’t matter what types of cancer cells you have, there is no difference in the success rate of treatment or the chances of a reoccurrence. Bev.