Welcome!

I have just  started contributing to the site.. it’s been a very cathartic process.

When you are in the cut and thrust of full on treatment, and your chances of making it through to the next stage of survival is measured in percentage terms, you don’t really have many thoughts other than to do with the immediacy of the here and now stuff you are engaged in . 

I have been in full remission now for just over a year.. I now feel the time for reflection and genuine future plans has arrived. 

To have a site such as Mission Remission,  to be able to offer up experiences that might just help another persons journey is a great feeling. 

Hi I'm new here I saw a post on fb and thought that sounds like something I need to look at.

Dont know how much detail to put I'm sure you all have your own stories to tell but here goes.

I was diagnosed with colorectal cancer T4 about 14 months ago, my consultant told me there was a danger of a blockage and needed to have a stoma and colostomy this was arranged quickly with a week in hospital.

Then immediately started 6 weeks of daily radio chemo therapy, followed my a 12 week wait to see if the tumor shrunk, It didn't significantly.

Saw my consultant who said because it was so low down it wouldn't be possible to remove and re connect my plumbing, what he told me next I was totally shocked and devastated by.

They would be removing everything from my bowel down and my bum sealed up.

He asked me if I wanted a second opinion which I said I did, he arranged for me to see his colleague who gave the same prognoses but offered to send my scans and information to a surgeon at another hospital.

This was set up and the surgeon sent me an appointment, he had looked over my scans and told me he was confident he could remove the tumor and re connect everything.

I had to go through vigorous pre opp assessments and came out with flying colours.

I was to have the tumor removed with robotic keyhole surgery in an opp schedule for 5-7 hours and would be on a ventilator throughout. Scary stuff!

I was in theatre for 12 hours had my rectum re made my blumbing re connected and my colostomy changed to an ileostomy using the same stoma.

I was only in hospital 4 days came home and recovered well.

my stoma was reversed 7 months ago and things are at last starting to work normally.

I have read some of the articals on the site about fatigue and see its part of the remission process, I've been beating myself up about it and couldn't understand why I had to take to my bed having 2-3 hour naps.

I got the all clear from my scans but had to have a further bone scan as they found some fractures in my pelvic area this was confirmed to be age related and not a concern.

Thankfully I'm cancer survivor :) 

I never realised that the journey would be still ongoing but pleased I found this site, It's all making sense now I can stop beating myself up.

Thanks for letting me join.