Just diagnosed with rectal cancer

Hi Happy 14 and a warm welcome to the board from me. It’s a horrible shock isn’t it but it sounds like they now have a treatment plan in place and things will start to move quite quickly. Having chemoradiotherapy before surgery is quite common and used to shrink the tumour as much as possible before removing it. I had 5 weeks attending every day from mon-fri and the chemo is taken on the same days in tablet form. They mentioned having a stoma beforehand to me but my Bowels were still working ok so they decided not to - this will be something to discuss at your meeting.

There will be a 6-10 week gap after your radiotherapy as it continues to work after the actual treatment has finished and then you will have surgery to remove the tumour. You may need a stoma after surgery for a while to give the bowel time to mend but this is often reversible at a later date.

Bowel cancer is notoriously slow growing but very treatable. Please stay away from google - it is out of date and downright scary in places - stay on here and the bowel cancer uk site. If you click on people’s names then it will take you to their profile page which may describe their treatment so far.

Ive attached a couple of booklets that you might like to have a look at before your meeting. They will give you an idea of treatment, terminology etc. 

https://bowelcancerorguk.s3.amazonaws.com/Publications/YourPathway_BowelCancerUK.pdf

https://bowelcancerorguk.s3.amazonaws.com/Publications/YoungPersonsGuide_BowelCancerUK.pdf

Please let us know how you get on - we’ll be happy to help and support you through this

Take care

Karen x

Hi Happy 14, sorry to hear of your problem. I also had 5 weeks of chemo radiotherapy which shrunk the tumour very effectively.. I was told up front that I would need a temporary ileostomy after the main surgery but no mention was made to me about possibly having a stoma because of the treatment and I had no problems with it.

After the chemo radiotherapy, the operation on the lower section of the bowel and the back up chemo I have now had a reversal and when last they looked I am clear. Fingers crossed for the future. I say this to show you that the diagnosis you have may sound bad but the treatment can work!

All the best as you travel along this journey, I hope it all works out well for you.

John

Thank you Karen, this has been really useful and reassuring. I hope everything is going well for you x

Thank you John, I'm really pleased you are now clear, that's great news.