Hi Duck, I had exactly that op on March 15, via laparoscopy. 5 days in hospital. Walking around next day, stitches out 2 weeks later. Advised ( as with all abdominal surgery no heavy lifting for 6 weeks. Was driving a week after the op. Diet wise, fibre lite for first week, then gradually introduced foods to see what was tolerated, was back onto all-bran and all other foods within a fortnight.
ChrisVLC , thanks for the reply , like you planned for keyhole surgery but this is all dependant on the siting of the tumour. I guess recovery is always different and specific to an individual. I am glad you were up and around so quickly.
Thanks for asking… I’m really well thanks, in fact I take my last tablet of the 6 months of chemo, this Monday evening. Only real issue is persistent toe numbness, but I’m told this will gradually improve. how are you?
In Summer 2024 I had a lovely pasta meal, and was awake all night with severe abdominal pain. This was followed by occasional left side pain. I went to the GP thinking maybe I had a gluten intolerance. Stool tests didn’t show any blood, but did show very high levels of calprotectin indicating a lot of inflammation. I was already avoiding gluten at this point, and was referred to the “gut” consultant. I saw her in November, and an appointment made for January for a further stool test to establish whether the gluten free diet reduced the inflammation. I still had occasional left side pain, but nothing severe, and no constipation or diarrhoea. Just before Christmas I did pass blood, and went to the urgent facility at the local hospital ( I’m in Spain) and they checked me out, thought it could be diverticulitis and told me to keep the consultant appointment. January 2nd there was a massive bleed, so back to the urgent facility, where they did a CT scan with no contrast to have a quick look, and told me then and there that there was a lesion, and where, and that it was probably malignant. I stopped the gluten free diet!
Do they know how long you had it? I know bowel polyps can take a long time to cause symptoms
Did you have the ct scan with intravenous contrast as opposed to oral contrast or no contrast at all? It's amazing that it showed it up wasn't it?
Did you have a colonoscopy afterwards?
I've had 2 cts with iv contrast which haven't showed anything but not with oral .
I was hoping to have a colonoscopy but the prep but it didn't work so I'm awaiting sigmoidoscopy with enema but that won't show all the bowel. It's all very worrying.
Both my fit tests were normal but something has to be causing my problems.
After the quick no contrast CT scan ( which they expected to show diverticulitis) and once they’d seen the lesion, I had colonoscopy and CT with IV contrast thorax, abdomen and pelvis. Take my last chemo tabs tonight, scans 12th and results on 21st
No, no idea of size. They did have difficulty getting the camera round the corner to get to the rest of the colon, so they also did a “virtual colonoscopy” which used 3D digital imaging to check the ascending and transverse colon.
