Adenocarcinoma rectum

Hi my diagnose was very much the same as yours. 

I am 46 and before surgery I dreaded the thought of perm stoma but to be honest it's fine just had to learn to believe in myself. 

I was informed that if I had reversal I could be bowel incontinent which scared me even more than a stoma. 

Had surgery Aug 2018 have not returned to work nothing to do with Apr surgery but have been perianal wound complications.

Looking forward to living life again 

Good luck 

Xxxxxx

I hope i can also do the things which i do today in future. Thank you for your reply.

Hi Fortis 

Not sure exactly your circumstances but sometimes  after radio chemotherapy the tumour either shrinks dramatically or in about 10-15% disappears. Usually the standard is to still go to surgery albeit with better margins so that the tumour can be removed more safely. However; if the tumour disappears completely during/after the 8 week wait after chemo radiotherapy they will sometimes offer more chemo before surgery or something called watch and wait which is getting more widely accepted where basically tight surveillance to see if the tumour recurs or whether surgery can be avoided. So it’s certainly worth being aware of so you can talk about it to your consultant to see if relevant to you. A lot of surgeons still see the “gold standard” as surgery but when surgery potentially is radical and involves a permanent stoma, watch and wait if the patient has a complete response to the radio chemo is becoming more widely accepted as a potential option as long as you know the pros and cons and accept that you will have tight schedule of MRIs, CTs and sigmoidoscopes to check for any regrowth. Good luck. 

Best, Annie xxx 

Hello Fortis,

I don't know what adenocarcinoma rectum means exactly or whether my situation is relevant to yours but I was told by my hospital that since my course of chemoradiotherapy did not clear the cancer I'd need a stoma.  Some patients who meet the criteria can then go onto receive Papillon treatment as I am doing.  Papillon is a low beam treatment that can work for some patients who would otherwise have to have a stoma.

Best wishes,

AEC 

Hi Fortis,

I also had the 5 weeks of chemo/radio. I was expecting to have an APR, but in my case the surgical margins were too tight despite the shrinkage from chemo/radio. Instead I had to go down a more radical route of having a Total Pelvic Externation ( which for a man means an APR plus also the removal or my prostate and bladder). So I was left with two permanent stomas ( colostomy and urostomy). That's the bad news. The good news is though that I am now cancer free, with very low risk of reoccurrence as the surgery had  very large margins. I am now well on the road to regaining full physical fitness and living a virtually normal life again. 

I still get tired if I overexert but it lessons month by month. Still a bit of neuropathy in my feet from the chemo/radio.

So a permanent stoma should not be a problem for you. Think of it as a life saver.