Bondara 3 for £30 All Departments banner
Letter cubes spelling 'chance' or 'change'

My new life post-surgery and whilst having Chemotherapy

The blog is still here. I couldn’t end it.

If you saw my previous post from October, you will notice that despite my mutterings to leave the blogging world, I ended up renewing my hosting and domain registration for another year. After all the crazy changes that happened due to my emergency bowel surgery in September my head was in a bit of a spin. It still is…

I mentioned my surgery but didn’t go into the full extent of what was removed. My consultant’s letter to me has all the medical jargon:

  • Right hemicolectomy, end ileostomy, omentectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. That is a lot to get your mouth around. What it basically means is that they cut away some of my small intestine and appendix that was diseased. My small intestine is now diverted through a little stoma opening on my abdomen. I need to wear a pouch to collect my number 2s. It’s a different way of going to the toilet now; instead of one big poo in the morning out of the usual route, I now make 6 or so deposits from my pouch throughout the day. I also have a lovely middle of the night trip to the loo. On top of that, they needed to remove my ovaries, fallopian tubes and some of the lining of my abdominal cavity (the omentum).
  • In terms of the tumour itself, it was a poorly differentiated ileocaecal adenocarcinoma. The staging was pT4N2bM1b, which means the tumour was stage 4. There were 13 out of 21 diseased lymph nodes. Although the cancer is thought to have originated in my small bowel, it had spread to my ovaries and peritoneum.

Post-surgery

The surgery was a success, and overall my recovery was good. It took about 8 weeks for my abdominal wound to heal. I now have a lovely vertical scar running from about 2 inches above my belly button all the way down to my bikini line. As far as scars go, it looks pretty neat and tidy. But it’s a reminder of how much my life has changed since.

For one thing, I am now officially menopausing. No more eggs, means no more periods, no more children, and I’ve started having hot flushes. I’ve not gone down the HRT route so far, and it may be that I decide to try it in the future. But for now I’m taking a supplement from a company called Hey Nutrition. I’m including links in this post for information purposes rather than as an affiliate.

I started my Chemotherapy treatment towards the end of November. I’m fortunate enough to have health insurance so my chemo has been in a private hospital, which is a lot calmer and peaceful than where I had my surgery. I’m on a fortnightly regime, so on a Monday or Tuesday I’ll go into the hospital about 9am, and have bloods taken through my port-a-cath which is in my chest on the left, roughly in line with my arm pit. It feels a bit like a disc under the skin, and slightly protrudes. But otherwise it doesn’t bother me.

Chemotherapy

My chemotherapy regime is FOLFIRI which consists of 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU), Folinic Acid and Irinotecan. I also have a VEGF-A antibody based treatment called Avastin. On day one of the treatment, all these treatments are sequentially administered via my port-a-cath, following the blood testing. This checks there are no issues with my blood count, liver or kidney function. I leave about mid afternoon with what I call my ‘baby bottle’ that contains a 46-hour slow release amount of the 5-FU. I get the pump removed two days later in a quick appointment (usually about 30 minutes).

My consultant suggested I have 6 rounds of the above therapy, before having another CT scan on my abdomen to check the status of the leftover peritoneal spots. I am due to have round 5 this week. So I’m getting closer to the date of the scan. That in itself is making me feel partly anxious and partly excited. I want to see shrinkage of the cancerous spots. That’s what I’m hoping for. Next steps following this 6-round treatment plan will depend on whether there’s enough shrinkage to go ahead with further surgery involving HIPEC (Heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy), which would be performed at a specialist hospital a couple of hours drive from my home.

Alternatively, I may have further rounds of Chemotherapy. We’ll have to watch this space. I’ll try to do better to write more on this blog while I’m on leave from my day job. I kind of want to post this update now, so there’s no featured image as I haven’t found one that I don’t need to pay for, and I’ve not photographed my actual scar yet. My Chemo-buddy is a relative who will be arriving imminently, and they don’t know about this blog, so I’ll wrap this up and post another time as soon as I can…Thanks for reading this. <3  I’m not posting for sympathy or anything. I’m feeling pretty good at the moment. I will fight this cancer, and I’m not giving up easily!

image used previously on this site; can’t remember where but seemed appropriate! 

Mastodon

Tantus 100% Premium silicone

About Bunny

Check Also

Managing Moods, Combating Fatigue, and Feeling Energised: A Guide for Perimenopausal Women

I didn’t write this article. I decided to utilise Grammarly’s free AI Writing tool, to …

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.