Results

Jane the colorectal nurse rang this morning, to let me know the pathology report is through and it appears the multidisciplinary team has alreaady met and floated a plan.  The dysplastic polyp in the right colon had actually gone beyond dysplastic, and was a new tumour, but has been completely removed. The tumour at the original site had not penetrated through the bowel wall, but one out of nine lymph nodes contained tumour, so the next step is to have a chat with the oncologist with a view to starting another full course of chemo between 6 and 12 weeks after surgery, probably early September.  I am not relishing the thought, and asked about radiotherapy because that was mentioned in Out-patients, but there is no remaining target, which I suppose has to be good news.  The chemo aims to get rid of any sneaky cells hiding in unexpected places.

Jane didn't think the amount of pain I have been in was anything surprising and thought I was doing well.  I need to be told that, because when I look back to last Wednesday I can't see a lot of improvement.  I suppose there was a bit of adrenaline associated with getting home, whereas now it just feels like a long haul.  She agreed with me that the four sections of my bowel are probably not working as a unit yet, so hold-ups of wind are bound to cause symptoms.

Anyway, the next thing to get ready for is the barge holiday, which Jane was keen for me to have as part of my recuperation.  I hope the others won't get too worn out having to share all the heavy stuff, but at least I will be able to help with the catering and planning the stages of the journey.

I have an appointment at rheumatology on August 9th, to get my trigger thumb injected.  I originally went to ask for this when I thought I might need a colostomy, because my Left thumb was pretty useless and I was worried about having enough manual dexterity to cope with the procedures.  The thumb is actually a lot better after the enforced rest, but the underlying joint changes have been getting worse for a long time so I shall go and see what they can do for me.  I hope it doesn't make me even more useless for the holiday!