Secondary cancer treatment

Hi Pipaluck

Welcome to the forum!

If you click on my user name you can read my mum’s story ! Great to hear you are safely through the bowel surgery as it might be easier having chemotherapy without having to worry about it obstructing! 

My mum was initially inoperable due to the extensive spread in her liver . In fact she also had an immediate recurrence after a liver resection which was also deemed inoperable and returned to chemotherapy. She was very responsive to chemotherapy despite a significant spreads . Using a systematic approach to treatment was actually a good idea at that stage as it allows all the visible and microsatellite disease to be targeted. Whilst something is currently not operable , successful treatment can turn that around !

I take it your spread to the liver is quite small given they tried to operate on it right away ?  After chemotherapy you might like to start looking into Hipec treatment ! 

https://community.macmillan.org.uk/cancer_types/bowel-colon-rectum-cancer-forum/f/bowel-colon-rectum-cancer-forum/225985/my-journey-keeps-on-going

tryingtobeabravemummy has just completed her chemotherapy and heading towards surgery so you might find her story encouraging and hopefully she will pop along to share with you !

Take care !

Court 

Hi Pipaluck,,,, Welcome to the forum. My journey started with dull back pain and some weight loss, but I had none of the typical bowel cancer symtoms either... It started with the GP finding traces of blood in my urine and signs of infections on my bloods... after an ultrasound they found significant fluid acummulation on my left kidney which was the cause of the back pain... fast forward CT scans, biopsies, colonoscopy etc... and the cause was a metastatic mass that in the end was found to be of bowel cancer origin... Anyway, after 6 moths I was diagnosed  with bowel cancer, and sent in for surgery (de-functioning ileostomy, staging laparoscopy and a stent insert to relieve the pressure on the left kidney). I was told that there was no possibility of surgery for the cancer at the time (I had a tumour in my bowel and the metastatic mass on my retroperitoneal area)... We spoke about palliative care in terms of controlling the disease (stage 4). The gave me a stoma bag to eliminate the risk of bowel blockage during chemo. The doctors decided that systemic chemotherapy was the best initial approach to try and reduce the size and then decide what next from there. I did 6 cycles of FOLFIRI chemo and responded well to it with minimal side effects and was able to carry on my normal busy mum life pretty much as normal. I even had COVID in the middle of it as my little one picked it up at nursery... I had my last cycle on the 15th of september and had a CT on the 18th. I saw my doctor a few days after and the news was great, the tumour in the bowel reduced so much that its almost undectable on the CT and the metastic mass on the retroperitoneum reduced significantly as well which means I can now have surgery to have both removed. I have a PET scan next week and after that should be in for surgery very soon to reap the rewards of the chemo... So all in all I would say that all you can do is have hope that the chemo works for you as well. It is not exacty the same, but the systemic chemo approah can work  and bring up other options as a lot of people say that here. I hope your treatment goes well and you don't suffer much with side effects... if you need to talk we are always here. Take care xx