diagnosed with caecum cancer last week

Hi L16 and welcome to the board. The first few weeks after diagnosis are very stressful especially if waiting for scan results, meetings etc. Hopefully your surgery date will be soon.

Bowel cancer is notoriously slow growing but also very treatable. Please stay away from google - it can be scary and misleading - stay on here and you can ask anything you like or just click on people’s names and their profile page may show their treatment so far.

How to cope? Try to distract yourself, try to keep fit and healthy, try not to assume that every twinge is something sinister - the scans will give the true picture.

Good result stories? The thing with boards like this is that people often leave once they have finished treatment so you don’t often hear good news stories of 10/15/20 years+ but that’s not because they’re not out there. 
I was diagnosed in 2016 and I’m approaching my 5 year clear anniversary at the end of this month. The 2 ladies that I became close friends with who were diagnosed at the same time are also still clear. 
Hopefully this will help you get your positive vibe back on and focus on getting better and going to your holiday home to relax in the sun.

Take care and keep posting - we’ll be happy to support you through this

Karen x

Karen, Thank you so much for your positive reply and congratulations on reaching your 5 year clear anniversary. 

so glad i’ve reached ou it’s not an easy thing to do, i’ve read too much and feel it’s taking over my life. however you have gave me a little bit prospective, can i ask how you were diagnosed symptoms etc and treatment ?

real life stories as opposed to stats are the most positive for me 

thanks again

I passed my 2yr anniversary in july.If you click on my name a short bio will come up.you will get through what I like to think of as a blip in your life.

All the best and ask anything,I will try to answer

Kath

Hi L16. Happy to help although my tumour was in the rectum so treatment might be slightly different. 
I went to the doctors after having diarrhoea and passing blood when I went to the toilet (this had actually been going on for well over a year but I’d put it down to a lifestyle change and only went as we were due to go to majorca). She fast tracked me for a colonoscopy which showed the tumour and this was confirmed by the biopsy and scans. 
I then had 5 weeks chemoradiotherapy (although this tends to be only for rectal tumours) then surgery with a temporary stoma. I had 2/17 lymph nodes affected so had 8 chemo sessions then my stoma reversed. 
If you click on my name then you can see my story - I had a couple of set backs along the way but that’s not the norm!

Im not going to lie - there will be tough times ahead both mentally and physically - but it is doable. I just crossed each bridge as I got to it and tried to carry on as near to ‘normal’ as I could. I didn’t know anyone else who’d had bowel cancer so this board was really helpful and supportive.

Take care

Karen x

Thank you for your reply Kathryn like Karen’s i need to absorb the positive stories