Hiya,
I received my colposcopy results while in Portugal and had to drive my campervan back immediately so I could be booked in for further tests.
i had an MRI and a CT and yesterday (11/3/24) was advised the clinical staging is 2A and that they won’t operate (I requested a radical hysterectomy if poss as I’m already menopausal) so am being lined up for Chemoradiation.
I'm waiting for an appointment for a PET CT to check my lymph nodes then I have an appointment on the 2/4 with the consultant who will be sorting my treatment as it’s at a different hospital.
The appointment yesterday felt like it was rushed through, the consultant was almost flippant and no one could answer my questions as treatment is elsewhere. Nothing about what they saw to give the 2A staging, whether the PET CT would change that at all and why no operation. I left there expecting to feel a little better knowing what I was dealing with but I feel confused and exhausted and quite frankly still scared as nothing has been answered apart from the duration of treatment.
i know it’s a waiting game still now, goodness knows what work will be like in the meantime.
I’m usually a brush it off, stand up tall, positive outlook type but can’t quite find that me at the mo
Hi Mandy76 and welcome to our group.
Oh gosh, I’m sorry you had to come back home after your colposcopy results-that must have been awful for you. Sometimes you need to be treated at at a different hospital, as your own hospital might not have the facilities to offer, for example, radiotherapy. I wasn’t treated at the hospital where I was diagnosed and had to go out of area for my own treatment.
Sometimes, but not always, a radical hysterectomy can be performed with a stage 2a diagnosis, but it will depend on factors individual to you -size and location of tumour for example. Standard protocols are in place for treatment of all stages of cervical cancer, so your team will have made their decision based on this and your circumstances, with the treatment plan designed to give you the best outcome. Have you been told the size of your tumour from the scans you’ve had? There are strict rules on when the size might be too big for surgery and it is not possible.
The mri scan would have given information on the size and location of your tumour, and the Ct scan should identify if it has spread anywhere locally within the pelvis. The petscan will be scanning your whole body to see if any there are any areas of activity such as lymphnodes which light up. All of these scans when assessed together give a full picture of what is going on. For example if the cancer were in any lymphnode, the staging would change from 2a and surgery would definitely not be an option.
When you go for your next appointment you should ask for an explanation of why surgery isn’t an option so you are quite clear on the rationale before you sign consent for your treatment.
I appreciate how difficult it is when you are first diagnosed and don’t have all the information you need-it’s very stressful. I was initially told I would be having a radical hysterectomy but when my scan results came in, I was staged at 2b, where surgery is not an option and I had chemorads instead. It can be risky to have surgery in case of further spread of the cancer but I do understand you wanting surgery-so did I!
The waiting is horrible at this point, and everything seems to take a long time, but your team need all the facts to plan the right treatment. Things typically become easier when you know why something is happening and have the treatment fully explained to you. Then you can get on with dealing with it.
Please feel free to ask any questions in the group-many ladies have been through chemoradiation very successfully.
Sarah xx
