ELAPE - lived experience

atp 7 months ago

4 replies
106 subscribers
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Hiya all,

I'm newish here, moving from lurking to posting...

I'm hoping to hear some members' lived experience of going through and then recovering from ELAPE surgery. Thanks to those of you that have posted previously about this, I've found a few threads.

Short story:

Was being treated for PTSD last summer, and this led to investigations into my symptoms, and a subsequent diagnosis of low rectal cancer. Six cycles of chemo were followed by five weeks of radio + chemo. Scans then showed some response to the treatment, but only partial, so the discussion now is whether I'm given ELAPE or extra-anatomical ELAPE operation. This will follow in a few weeks I guess.

It's quite a daunting prospect. What advice could you offer about preparation for, going through, and recovering from this op please? I appreciate it will take me a while to get back to normal, though not sure what normal will actually look like.

Many thanks, and much appreciated in advance.

Kareno62 7 months ago

Hi atp and a warm welcome to the board. Have you put ELAPE into the search box at the top of the screen? There’s been a few posts - I’ve attached a link to 1 below.

ELAPE operation

Some people may not still regularly check the board but if you wanted to tag someone into a post to ask a question then type @ followed by their user name (no space) and they should appear in a drop down which you can click on - this notifies them of your post.

Hope this helps

Take care

Karen x

Macmillan Support Line - 0808 808 00 00, 7 days a week between 8am-8pm

superfly 4 months ago

Hi ATP,

I have been through a similar experience and have described the journey on my profile- link below.

Wishing you all the best with it all

community.macmillan.org.uk/.../superfly

Sean

atp 4 hours ago in reply to superfly

Many thanks for this. Sorry to hear of the developments. Hope you're doing OK.

superfly 4 hours ago in reply to atp

Hi atp,

Good to hear from you and that you have got through the whole ELAPE experience ok...quite an ordeal I am sure. Best of luck with your continued recovery. I am still feeling fine with no symptoms. My next scan is at the end of the month so will know where I am up to after that. Hoping the tumours are still stable or haven't rocked up anywhere else. Ironically, I am in Brighton this weekend at the Amex stadium! All the best ...Sean

Sean