Hi everyone,
31 years old and I was diagnosed with colon cancer end of January after a colonoscopy where they found a malignant tumour in the lower end close to the rectum.
Within a week the MRI, CT, blood and biopsy tests were done and the surgeon had me and my partner in her office where she confirmed it was cancer and talked me through the possible ways to go ahead but explained they always do the multidisciplinary meetings. A few weeks down the line the meeting was done and surgery before chemotherapy was decided.
I had my surgery on the 19th of April which was successful, keyhole plus an incision by the bikini line, and I was fitted with a temporary ileostomy that will be reversed after my chemotherapy if finished. After a 10 day stay I got to go home and last week I met my oncologist for the first time.
He talked me through the results after my surgery, my surgeon had talked me through some of this as well before I left the hospital.
The tumour was a T3 and not a T4 as they thought initially and they removed 33 lymph nodes where 1 had cancer in it, which means chemotherapy.
He mentioned two different types of chemotherapy treatments, all depending on how my stoma is doing next week when we have our follow up meeting.
1: was Capox/Xelox for 3 months with a monthly visit to the hospital and tablets 21 days and 7 days rest.
2: was Folfox for 6 months with a 48h visit to the hospital every two weeks and a picc line.
The first option would be out if my stoma would stay highly active and liquid consistency because not sure tablets would work as well as they should.
I feel slightly torn as I obviously would love to be finished with my treatment in 3 months instead of 6 but also worried that they might not work with the stoma if side effects such as diarrhoea would kick in. Also not tried to incorporate veg or fruit in my diet yet as I'm not by the 6-8 week mark yet and don't know how these would affect my output either, obviously I could try and stay without trying them for another 3 months but not sure how much good that would do for my body either.
My stoma is still quite high in the output but half the time it's not as watery liquid as before.
Interested to see who's had either of these treatments whilst with an ileostomy stoma (temp or perm) and if there's been any issues with the stoma, especially with the Capox with the tablets?
Quite a long post, but a lot of thought in me head I'm trying to make sense out of.
Thank you :)
Hi John,
I did get Loperamide at the hospital, but my surgeon did seem to not be too pleased with it and wanted me to be off it as much as possible as it made it almost too firm instead. They did send me home with some just in case, and I did use it one day early on after getting home and it seemed to work just fine. After that I've forgotten about it until now when you mentioned it again.
Did you try any type of veg or fruit or just stick to the low fibre for the time being?
One food I've identified that really doesn't agree with it is white rice, everything else seems to be working. I am sticking to the same things a lot to try and keep it under control.
I don't know if they can switch, that is something good for me to be able to ask the oncologist on our follow up. Assume they must be able to but a good conversation about it ahead as well.
Thank you 
