I have vaginal tumour 6x4cm, awaiting pet scan results. MRI showed some suspicious iliac nodes on right side.
pain in rectum is horrendous even after morphine and paracetamol. Was rushed to hospital a few days ago as it haemorrhaged and my blood pressure was 50/35. They patched me up and sent me home. Told me it could keep happening as I really need urgent cancer treatment but that will be provided by Liverpool Women’s Hospital once they have the pet scan results.
I’m now living in fear of another big bleed and the pain is getting harder to manage. Sick of it already. I assume the pain comes from the tumour pressing on the bowel and bladder.
anyone been through similar symptoms?
Hi AEW66
Excellent results from your petscan-that’s really good news for you and such a relief. It’s hard to say when things will happen to be honest as every hospital is different. Sometimes your nurse phones after the MDT has met, or as in my case I had to go in for a face to face appointment with my consultant. From my original diagnosis, to scans, mdt and the treatment starting took 6 weeks for me, and in that time I also had to have a planning scan for my radiotherapy treatment. It felt like quite a long time, but was fairly typical speaking to other ladies I met at treatment.
There is a sequence of pain relief, your gp is correct, and things are done slowly with this. Constipation can be an unfortunate side effect of opiate medication so that’s something to be aware of.
I had my surgery in March 2020, so coming up to 4 years. However, none of my consultants have ever used the words cancer free and so I don’t use this phrase myself. After my initial treatment I had a “NED” result which is no evidence of disease. After my exenteration surgery, I had the same result. But my team are always cautious because cancer cells can be left behind which can’t be seen and might not be picked up on scans. Clearly that was the case for me the first time round after chemoradiation, since my cancer quickly recurred, despite the scan showing a complete response to treatment.
However, your team may use words like this-all professionals are different and I often read members saying they are cancer free. I just happen to have a team who use “no evidence of disease”. I am well, so I base my life on that!
Sarah xx
