If you read the previous post, you know what a big deal last week was – getting the results of how well my cancer treatments did in addressing the tumour situation. A few of you asked for another post to provide an update when I had some answers so here you go!

I will start by telling you that I don’t have all of the answers yet. I was supposed to have an appointment with the Ottawa Colorectal Group last Thursday (the surgeons who are part of my care team), where I think all the details about results and such were to have been discussed, but that has been postponed.

The surgeon who did the sigmoidoscopy on Wednesday wants to do another scope in a few weeks before I meet with them in-clinic to discuss everything.

Now – on to what we did learn!

Results so far

The MRI results were the first to come in and provided the first indication that things were definitely moving in the right direction. It was, naturally, in a lot of medical language, but I was able to glean some key bits:

• The lymph node that had previously been affected is clearly “no longer suspicious”.
• The area where the tumour was appears to now be scar tissue. Obviously that’s a little vague, but “scar” is better than “tumour” any day of the week and twice on Sundays!

The CT results didn’t provide any more details, but the sigmoidoscopy was quite helpful.

It’s a very short procedure (the scope itself was maybe about 3 minutes), so I didn’t have any sedation or anything. As a result I was able to watch the whole thing. It was super cool to be able to literally see it!

Where at the colonoscopy in February there was a lumpy-bumpy, ugly blob of a tumour there was now a beautiful white section of scar tissue. Yes…beautiful (all things being relative)! It was so nice to see!

Dr. Zhang said that from what she could see, it exhibited a “near complete response” to treatment. She explained that the body continues to respond to treatment for up to 12 weeks after treatment ends and that’s why she wants to do another scope in a few weeks. It’s possible that we will end up with a “complete response” by that point, which would be the best possible result.

Also, the mystery of the ever-present blood I’ve been having the last 4 weeks was answered. The area around the scar tissue is very actively bleeding. As quickly as Dr. Zhang washed it away (with a thingy like they have at the dentist’s office), the blood filled out again. But she said that was normal and nothing to worry about, so I’ve scratched that off the “Things I’m concerned about list”, which is great.

How I feel about it

In keeping with my standard approach, I’m not putting all my eggs in the best-case basket, but I am hopeful that’s where we’ll end up. Even if that’s not the end result, things are still very, very positive and I’m quite content with that right now.

Yes, there are still a lot of questions unanswered, but what I have learned is enough to tide me over till January.

Where you can see pictures, if you want

Several photos from the scope last week have been uploaded to my online medical chart, which is awesome. I took a couple of pictures myself, but the ones they uploaded were a lot clearer.

I also reached out to the clinic where the colonoscopy was done in February and they were able to send me some photos from that scope, including of the tumour! I had wanted to ask that day if I could take a picture of the screen showing the tumour, but thought they’d think it was too weird. I’ve obviously gotten over that. 😀

I know that might sound a bit strange, but in addition to being (obviously) personally invested in this whole thing, I am also very intellectually curious about it. so being able to physically see it is really cool to me. It is particularly interesting to be able to have the before and after comparison photos.

I was tempted to add a couple here, but I know some people are very squidgy about that kind of stuff so I haven’t.

Instead, I’ve posted them to another blog that I have, which is normally just used to help me learn blogging skills. I’ve put them there in case any of you are also curious to see the comparison.

In a nutshell

Well, there you have it! Treatments have worked – not completely yet, but well enough to be happy. There’s still a long road ahead, but we know it will be a much nicer road than the worst-case-scenario road, so yay!

Keep sending all your positive thoughts/prayers/vibes/etc. They really do help and, like I said, we are nowhere near the finish line yet!

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