AmyK's Journey with Colorectal (Colon) Cancer

Went to visit my radiation Dr for the first time.Depending on my insurance company,i can have different radiation therapies.One will either be a machine that can sort of bend around other non-cancerous sites like my ovaries,or my ovaries may be affected causing pre-menopause in my 36yr old self....

Monday Oct 1,2012 I will be having surgery to move my right ovary out of the way of radiation in hopes to preserve my own hormonal function vs taking supplements. The Dr will look and see if the left side is plausible but may not be able to due to the complexity of the veins and blood issues on that side.

I am currently taking Xeloda pills.3 in the morning with food and 3 after dinner.I am trying to minimalize side effects by resting and also wearing circulation socks because I can feel my feet tingling after I take it.

I find that my lower back aches and am using a couple of sitting aids that are helping.

I finished 27 chemoradiations as of Nov 21,2012 I also got my menstrual cycle on the 25th day of treatment which shows the ovarian transposition may have worked.

having it in 2 weeks,apparently waiting for chemoradiation to work itself a while after finishing treatment.surgery will be scheduled according to the results

Went in for a sigmoidoscopy and found out that my cancer is gone from the chemoradiation ! :) I will still have surgery due to cell memory,but other than that I am over the moon right now !

Going to have a coloectomy to remove bottom portion of colon and lymph nodes Jan 23,2013

Its been over a month and I dont know if my ovarian transposition has helped with maintaining hormone function yet...

While my surgeon was performing my colectomy,she found that my uterus has melded to my colon prob due to radiation.She then separated it.

Went to visit surgeon today and having a urinalysis done because its hard to urinate sometimes.Will also be doing another scan next week to check on the colon and see if Im almost ready to reverse my ileostomy.

I had my ileostomy take-down 1 week ago and am doing ok for what its worth..I have to watch what i eat and eat small meals and my life revolves around toilet locations but I'll take it!

I am a superstitious person so I won't click on the 'r' word,but I did see my surgeon this past Friday so she could look at her work and everything is on track. I get to take a break from all of them and come back for my 1 year mark,which will be in August. This next week I will meet with a family Dr to see how my hormones and any other side effects are doing-gonna see if i want or even can do anything about it.Meanwhile,I continue to have warm tea with raw honey everyday because I believe raw honey has helped me out so much thus far..

So I wrote that I was going to the family Dr to check my hormones on May 9th,but after 160 days since my last cycle-sure enough it returned a couple of days before I was going to go.I guess my ovarian transposition of my right ovary worked.I still need to make another Dr appointment since I ended up not going due to other reasons.