Angus MacDonald

Wishing you all the best. My thoughts are with you.

Modern medical procedures are amazing and so I am sure there is every chance you will come through this.

Get well soon.

Quoted from RonMariner

Wishing you all the best. My thoughts are with you.

Modern medical procedures are amazing and so I am sure there is every chance you will come through this.

Get well soon.

They certainly are. It's incredible how they could have carved my skull open and stapled it up again after removing the tumour from my brain! I actually saw a brain tumour op on tv AFTER I had had my op. I'm bloody glad I didn't see it before!  

I mentioned on another thread that I was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 1998. I was lucky in that it was diagnosed early and after corrective surgery (most of my large bowel was removed) by a wonderful surgeon, Mr Henry Pearson, then I have been cancer free ever since. My thoughts go out to Angus and I hope he gets over this terrible condition.

Quoted from rancido

I mentioned on another thread that I was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 1998. I was lucky in that it was diagnosed early and after corrective surgery (most of my large bowel was removed) by a wonderful surgeon, Mr Henry Pearson, then I have been cancer free ever since. My thoughts go out to Angus and I hope he gets over this terrible condition.

Don't mean to be personal and you don't have to answer but did you have to have a colostomy bag?

Quoted from Meza

Don't mean to be personal and you don't have to answer but did you have to have a colostomy bag?

I did for the first couple of days after my main op. Bloody horrible experience.

Quoted from Meza

Don't mean to be personal and you don't have to answer but did you have to have a colostomy bag?

No problem Meza, the more people know about this terrible condition and what can be done to rectify it the better. No , I never had a colostomy bag fitted. The surgeon was very keen on me having one , due to the underlying reason I got the cancer - ulcerative colitis, but I managed to talk him into giving me a sub total colectomy. This involves removing both the tumour and a large amount of the surrounding bowel. It left me with about 18 ins of my colon ( large bowel ) remaining. Things have been fine since and although I know that there is a good chance of another tumour forming ( because I have ulcerative colitis ) I could handle that better now. I don't want to sound dramatic but I'm 71 now and having a bag fitted now , which would be the only option left if anything was to develop, wouldn't affect me psychologically as much as it would have done when I was 50. I was lucky in as much as I was offered the option but if the cancer had been further developed then I wouldn't have had that choice. Colo-rectal surgery has advanced so much since I had my operation and there are lots of options to treat this now.

Quoted from Les Brechin

I did for the first couple of days after my main op. Bloody horrible experience.

That was the main thing on my mind whilst waiting for results.

Quoted from rancido

No problem Meza, the more people know about this terrible condition and what can be done to rectify it the better. No , I never had a colostomy bag fitted. The surgeon was very keen on me having one , due to the underlying reason I got the cancer - ulcerative colitis, but I managed to talk him into giving me a sub total colectomy. This involves removing both the tumour and a large amount of the surrounding bowel. It left me with about 18 ins of my colon ( large bowel ) remaining. Things have been fine since and although I know that there is a good chance of another tumour forming ( because I have ulcerative colitis ) I could handle that better now. I don't want to sound dramatic but I'm 71 now and having a bag fitted now , which would be the only option left if anything was to develop, wouldn't affect me psychologically as much as it would have done when I was 50. I was lucky in as much as I was offered the option but if the cancer had been further developed then I wouldn't have had that choice. Colo-rectal surgery has advanced so much since I had my operation and there are lots of options to treat this now.

Thanks for sharing that Rancido.  I see, I just assumed when you have bowel surgery you then have the bag.  The reason why it worried me as it changes your life massively apparently as you cannot eat the same foods as you use to especially the portion sizes as my Mrs says (nurse at Lincoln County) it fills up very quickly and without realising can burst the bag or make it leak.  Which is ultimately embarrassing.  

Just to echo everybody else, good luck Angus, you can beat it.