Trusting your surgeon - APR surgery - colorectal surgery

nicky_noonah over 5 years ago

2 replies
124 subscribers
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My partner had this on Monday. After a long 10 months of dealing with his locally advanced (not spread) rectal cancer.

He was diagnosed November 2018

loop colostomy in Dec 2018

chemo and radiotherapy in Feb-mar 2019

more chemo Apr - May 2019

surgeons & oncologists arguing about his results Jun-Jul 2019

referred to alternative ‘specialists’ Jun-Jul 2019

We made our decision to stick with our own surgeon for APeR surgery Jul 2019

surgery took place Aug 2019

surgery went to plan Aug 2019

recovery so far is going well. No major problems. Steve is moving around and comfortable. Due to be released next week 7 days after surgery.

We are hopeful, as is his surgeon that they got all the tumour and cancer in his operation. Time will tell.

The last 10 months have been tough. Really tough. But I would advise anyone to do what we’ve done and take each day as it comes Deal with it one day at a time. AND always go with your gut feeling when it comes to trusting a surgeon and choosing your treatment.

Steve was advised and referred to ‘specialist’ surgeons for a second opinion. These specialists wanted to take his colon, bladder and prostate out in open surgery and leave him with 2 bags for life. They said this was his only option to cure him.

Steve chose not to go ahead with their advice and instead chose to stick with his current surgeon and take the chance on APR surgery. Thank goodness he did. The surgery earlier this week removed the tumour via robotic keyhole surgery. Time will tell if it removed all the cancer. Fingers crossed.

nicky_noonah over 5 years ago

Just to confirm. Steve had a loop colostomy in Dec 2018. As part of this surgery his loop colostomy was made permanent.

Steve is a builder and he was back working after his loop colostomy after 3 months. He has never had any problems with it.

Steve is 56 yrs old.

Nicky

FormerMember over 5 years ago

Hi Nicky,

My journey was almost identical ( loop, chemoradiotherapy) except that I opted for the TPE (Oct 2018) rather than just the APR. So open surgery and removal of the bladder, prostate and rectum/anus plus two bags for life. It has cured my cancer ( and also removed an undiagnosed additional primary Prostate cancer). All my subsequent scans and bloods have been clear and I have become fit and well enough to build a large summer house in the garden post operation.

It was clear to both my original surgeon and also my surgeon to whom I was referred to, that the surgical margins were too small to effect a cure using just APR surgery and that the risk of re-occurrence/spread would be too high.

Yes TPE is big op, but I opted to go down the route of seeking the best possibility of being cured without having to worry about did they get it all and then facing more ops/chemo for secondaries. My gut feeling definitely leant towards TPE rather than minimal APR. It also cured a severe sciatica caused by the tumour exerting pressure on my sciatic nerves which developed following the chemo/rad last summer). Then again I guess that being educated as a professional engineer, I always think about what is the most robust and minimal long term risk solution to the problem in hand.

I hope that it all works out for Steve though and he makes a full recovery.