Bowel Cancer diagnosed today

Hi Cumberbatch84 and a warm welcome to the board. I didn’t have spread to the pancreas but I did have 2 out of the 17 lymph novels that were removed affected and I also had a post op leak!

I was in hospital for a couple of weeks for the post op leak and had a drain in my buttock which was very uncomfortable. I was sent home with the drain and bag in situ and felt pretty rubbish if I’m honest but it did clear eventually.

Post op chemo is very common and the belt and braces. The cancer has been removed and this is a final blast to give your dad the best chance of avoiding a recurrence.

He will meet with an oncologist before starting treatment and they will explain which chemo he’ll be having and how it will be administered. if you post again once you know which he’s having then we can send you a link to some more information and top tips.

Chemo isn’t pleasant but it’s doable and sometimes it’s reputation is worse than the actual experience? Hope your dad gets home soon and can continue to recover from the op - they’ll want to make sure he’s fully recovered before starting any further treatment.

Take care

Karen x

Hi Kareno62  thank you for your reply. It really helped. 
how are you doing now? I hope you are doing ok. 
It was just a massive shock yesterday. We’ve kinda had to have this news twice, once when first suspected and now. However the spreading news floored me yesterday if I’m honest. But taking stock of what we know is key, and they removed the cancer and it’s the lymph nodes now that need to be treated with chemo. 
im keen to speak to the oncologist, as we all are. We all have a ton of questions. Not sure how quickly we should hear back from them?

for the moment the priority is recovery from post op leak and “fattening him up” so he is in a good place to handle chemo. If it is a 6 month course, do you know how often he’ll have it? My dad was panicking thinking it’ll be everyday but I don’t think that is likely. 

Hi Cumberbatch84 I’m doing fine now thanks. If you click on my name then you’ll see my treatment timeline but I was diagnosed in 2016 and I’m still ‘no evidence of disease’. 

I saw the oncologist 5 weeks after my op but I was back in by then with a bi-lateral pulmonary embolism so they wheeled me down to my appointment and she took one look at me and said ‘You look ****!’ so I didn’t start my chemo until 4 months after my op - they generally try to start within 8-12 weeks.

Depending on which chemo they advise for your dad it is usually done over a 3 week cycle. If it’s xelox/Capox then it’s an iv at the hospital on day 1, then capecitabine tablets at home for 13 days then a week off and repeat. If it’s something like folfox then this is administered through a pump into a permanent line which would be put into your dads chest. The pump then empties over 48 hours then is removed. The line stays in place until all the chemo has finished

I lost a lot of weight in hospital with my infection so yes, please keep fattening your dad up and get him as fit as possible before his chemo starts.

Take care

Karen x

 Cumberbatch84 There’s some useful information in here too about the various types of chemo?

bowelcancerorguk.s3.amazonaws.com/.../Bowel_Cancer_UK_Your_Pathway_V10.1.pdf