Stoma Bag

Hi Susan,

Well done on coming to the end of your chemo!! I, too have my final Oxiplatin infusion next week! (Then the capecitabine tablets)

im coming at it from the opposite direction to you!

I had the surgery first THEN chemo to make sure everything is gone gone gone

I was terrified of the surgery at the time but in hindsight I would do it all again in a heartbeat & have found the chemo much harder on me than the actual surgery!

I was told I may need a stoma (or a temporary stoma) & a stoma nurse came round the morning of my surgery & marked a black dot on me where the stoma would be if needed. To say I was terrified is an understatement but I thought needs must.... VERY luckily the stoma wasn’t needed & I made a very swift recovery (they waited 6 weeks between the surgery & chemo)

I really hope you do go ahead with the surgery because then you know it’ll (hopefully all) be gone

Suzy

Hi Suzy

Thank you for your reply.

Chemo is hard and the oxipalitin is awful. Hope your side affects haven’t been too bad. Great news that the end is in sight. As I keep telling everyone, ‘eyes on the prize’!

I’m probably over thinking everything at the moment and until I see the oncologist and have the scans done it’s all just pie in the sky! I think I’ll just focus on getting the last round done first.

Thanks again 

Susan x

Hi Susan, I bet you are pleased to be coming to the end of that round. I had the same, Capox I assume, but after my operation and that was after five weeks of radiotherapy and chemo, and yes, I ended up with a temporary ileostomy bag, now reversed.

As you said, you need to find out what the team have in mind for you next and then weigh it all up. My surgery, whilst a long op, went ok and didn't cause me any great problems and, if you have to have a stoma bag, believe me it isn't as bad as you think it might be and you can get on with your life with one. I had a bag so that the join that was made could heal well but, as Suzy said, you may not need one.

It has all ended up with me declared clear at the moment and I hope your treatment does the same for you.

All the best, John

Hi John

Thank you for your reply. It’s really good to hear the positive results and it’s making me keep an open mind. 

thanks again

Susan

Hi Susan,

Well done getting to the end of your chemotherapy. I’m finding the chemotherapy harder to deal with than the operation even though I’m not having too many side effects.

I too am like Suzy Sue. I had surgery first and am now having chemotherapy (Folfox); there was an 8 week gap between surgery and starting chemotherapy as I needed to recover from the operation.

Although it was a big operation (8 hours) the surgery itself didn’t worry me too much beforehand – I felt if I wanted to beat this, I didn’t really have a choice. I was scared the day before of not coming through it but I guess we maybe all feel like that in a similar situation when an anaesthetic is involved and we’re not in control. I think I recovered well from the surgery. If you go for the surgery the best advice I can give  is to be as fit as you can be going into surgery and get mobile as quickly as you can afterwards, but don’t beat yourself up about how weak you feel – you are likely to feel unbelievably weak – go with the flow and let your body heal itself.

I knew beforehand I’d have a (hopefully) temporary stoma, something I’ve had a dread of for decades. However, it’s a means to and end and I found once I accepted that I could deal with it. As ‘crankshaft’ says, it’s not as bad as you think and soon becomes part of everyday life.

I too hope you’ll go ahead with the surgery as you’ll know you’ve done all you can.

Take Care & Best Wishes,
Net77