New to this! High grade dysplasia or cancer

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I am now getting anxious again - I have 2 appointments at the hospital tomorrow. After 2 colonoscopies I was told that they were fairly sure I have rectal cancer. The reports have come back and they say high grade dysplasia. They have given me a T3 N0 M0 non invasive cancer in one of the reports. I have had a third colonoscopy, more biopsies to check for cancer. The treatment plan is 5 weeks chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery. The abnormal polyp clearly needs to be treated. I feel fairly calm about this as I think the treatment will be the same whether it is high grade dysplasia or cancer? As they have said this is treatable and the treatment plan seems to be in place,I am not sure if the latest biopsy results will change anything. I don't know if I am still in the 'numb' stage or denial about how serious this is? I feel more worried about any side effects of the treatments and recovering from the surgery (I will need surgery for a large fibroid they found during the scans - this is not cancerous, plus possible bowl surgery) Has anybody else had experience of this? I don't know what effect it will have on me if they say the latest biopsies show cancer. I am sort of worried that maybe I am not as freaked out by this as I should be! I did have a stroke 18 months ago and did a lot of soul searching about my own mortality etc. in the months after that. I am fairly well recovered from that - now only working part time 4 days a week. I am just trying to focus on the treatment and a positive outcome rather than how abnormal my polyp is! Sorry if I have gone on a bit - maybe it shows I am a little more anxious about tomorrow than I am letting on! The appointments tomorrow are in oncology then in the radiotherapy dept.

Kareno62 over 2 years ago

Hi. It sounds like you have accepted the treatment plan in place and this will deal with the polyp regardless of whether it’s cancerous or not. Bowel cancer is very treatable so focus on this positive. I totally get what you mean about not freaking out - I felt the same - I’m not sure if it was denial or the fact that they said they were treating me with a ‘view to cure’ so I maybe didn’t mentally accept that it was cancer and just got on with the treatment?

It’s good to hear that youve recovered fairly well from the stroke and made some adjustments to your life - I dropped from part-time everyday to just doing tue-Thursday giving me long weekends.
Let us know how the appointments go tomorrow? The chemo side is in tablet form and a low dose that enhances the effect of the radiotherapy - I pretended they were vitamins cos they’re quite big! x

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

Geminipi over 2 years ago in reply to Kareno62

I am glad somebody else felt the same. I am not looking forward to the treatment but it needs treating so I just want to get it over and done with cancer or dysplasia. I just got a freaked out yesterday speaking to my partner I said I was getting a little anxious about the appointments but said the only thing they could tell me that's different is that the third lot of biopsies show cancer rather than dysplasia but they are going to treat it in the same way do it didn't really matter. He said he would prefer it to be just dysplasia. I sort of get where he is coming from but as far as treatment goes for me it doesn't change anything! I'm not sure he really understood!

Jools63 over 2 years ago

Try not to worry about how you are reacting. I had rectal cancer in 2019, which was confirmed by a colonoscopy. I wasn’t expecting it at all, but went straight into “what do we do about it?” mode. I had 5 weeks chemo/radiotherapy and had very little side effects. A lot of us on here have said the waiting for a treatment plan is one of the worst things about it. Wishing you lots of luck.

Geminipi over 2 years ago in reply to Jools63

Thanks. Just want to get started. The old saying 'the quicker we start the quicker we finish' - or something like that!