Looking for hope!

Hi Jane1982 

Just want to welcome you to the forum .

I am trying to get my head around you being told by post as being told in person allows you to ask these sort of questions and draw from the surgeons wealth of experience.

I am no expert but we do have people who are down staged and they get great shrinkage . Only the surgeons can say what that means in terms of they type of procedure they are then able to do as they have a good look at the scans and know the margins they have to play with . Don’t be afraid to ask for a meeting . These are important questions .

Some very fortunate people are brilliant responders . But they like the scan evidence on how effective treatment has been before committing themselves . 
Kareno62 

Did you get shrinkage?

Take care ,

Court 

Thanks you for your reply.  A mouth ago was colonoscopy… handed a cancer book and told the bleeding was coming from the tail end of intestine as it looks like a tumor. So a biopsy, mri and ct scan was needed.  Letter arrived at the weekend to say it’s cancer and although the tumor is localized it’s threatened an important layer of tissue. Doesn’t tell me a stage or size!   This site has been great to try and educate myself to prepare for the next meeting thanks again  

Hi Jane1982 and a warm welcome to the board from me too. I was diagnosed with rectal cancer in 2016 and had chemoradiotherapy which shrank the tumour by 75%. The surgeons like to remove the tumour with clear margins (ie. a good amount of tissue around the tumour) so the smaller the tumour the better. With rectal cancer they need to have enough bowel to rejoin which is why radiotherapy is used beforehand. The chemo tablets taken alongside are a low dose of chemo which enhances the effect of the radiotherapy. 

There are people on here whose tumour has been completely obliterated by the chemoradiotherapy aka a complete response and have gone on to be cancer free tor many years. There are also people who have had recurrences after a complete response.

I think the main thing is to put yourself in the hands of the experts and focus on the first stage of treatment then assess the results from that. Hopefully you’ll have a meeting with your consultant shortly and can find out a bit more information. I’ve attached a link to a booklet that I was given at my first meeting which may help with terminology, what to expect etc.

https://bowelcancerorguk.s3.amazonaws.com/Publications/Bowel_Cancer_UK_Your_Pathway_V10.pdf

We’re all at different stages of treatment and recovery on here and happy to help and support you through yours

Take care

Karen x

Thanks everyone