View Full Version : OT: Has anyone here had colon cancer surgery?
jpritchet74
04-17-2018, 09:27 AM
If so, how was the recovery and have there been any complications?
If you don't want to post and would prefer to PM me that would be great.
Thanks in advance.
bocarider
04-17-2018, 10:26 AM
I have not had your surgery but I am 12 weeks post op from open heart surgery and can offer some general thoughts on a major life challenging surgery that I hope will be helpful to you. I put up a similar post a number of weeks ago and had some very helpful and kind responses. I hope I can help you a little bit as you face your challenges with the following thoughts:
- Make sure that before you go into the hospital you have your stuff in order like your will, healthcare surrogate designation, life insurance information, all of the stuff that I am sure will not be necessary, but merit attention in the event that you have issues. I found that going over all of this stuff with my wife, son and daughter actually was very comforting to me and to them as we all knew what would happen and that they were provided for if I did not make it through my surgery. I know it is a tough set of issues, but these need to be discussed.
-Confirm and reconfirm that your doctors, hospital and service providers are all on your insurance plan. My wife did this and got different answers each time, hence my suggestion about reconfirming. Keep copies of all of the bills you get and cross check them to the statement you get from your insurance company. It is a huge pain in the a$$ (sorry, no pun intended), but again, it needs to be tracked and addressed to make sure you are getting the full benefit of your insurance coverage.
-Get copies of all of your medical records BEFORE you leave the hospital. I cannot stress this enough as you may need to see other doctors post surgery and having those records so they can see the surgical report, the post op reports, the medications you were on and the other doctor's narratives of your condition is incredibly important.
-Seriously consider renting a recliner chair from a medical supply store. This was invaluable for me the first 6 weeks of my recovery. It is going to be hard to move around, including getting up and down out of a chair or a bed. The medical recliners are basically slow moving ejector seats that will put you in a good position to stand up and get back down again with the push of a button. I was in that chair all day and night for the initial 6 weeks of my recovery and I cannot stress how easy it made what are the basic movements of getting up and down which we take for granted in everyday life. Plus it was pretty comfortable to sit and lie in to watch TV and sleep in for extended periods of time.
-Pain management is going to be very personal. I was lucky and did not have a lot of pain - I was off the heavy pain drugs 48 hours after surgery - I hated the opiates which did ease the pain, but made me feel so out of it and otherwise crappy that I toughed it out on Tylenol once the chest tubes came out. You are a cyclist, so you know what the pain cave feels like.
-Hopefully you have a spouse, adult child or friend that can be with you during your hospital stay. My wife was an amazing advocate for me in the week I spent in the hospital. She kept track of a lot of the information, asked smart questions and was politely aggressive when I had some complications and needed to see other specialists.
-For me, getting back on my bicycle has been one of the most motivating factors in my recovery. It has not been easy, but I was back on the stationary bike after 10 weeks. I started walking every day during the first week, which was difficult but vitally important. I started by walking for 10 minutes a day around my backyard patio and added 5 minutes each day until I was doing 1/2 hour in the backyard (I have a Garmin forerunner watch and discovered that 40 times around my patio was 1/2 a mile). I then took it out on the road and was up to 5 mile walks at about 4 weeks. Walking after a major surgery is perhaps one of the most important things you can do - push yourself within reason to get up and walk every day a few times a day and use that to build back up.
-Nutrition and hydration are important. You will find that your body's healing process burns calories. I lost a lot of weight and ate a lot.
-Be kind to yourself. Healing from a major surgery is tough on your body - I am still getting very tired in the afternoon. Take naps and don't push yourself too hard too soon.
-The advice I got from a lot of people on this forum was to ease back onto the bike and listen to my body. After 2 weeks back on the trainer (I use Zwift) I am riding for an hour at a decent tempo - not nearly the wattage output I was doing before my surgery, but I'm doing it. I am adding 10 min to the tempo portion of each ride, keeping my heart rate at a reasonable level and feeling grateful that I can get on the bike and pedal. I plan to take it out on the road this weekend.
-Find fun stuff to watch on TV and stupid stuff to entertain you on the internet.
-For me, getting back on my bike was always in my mind and a comforting and motivating factor to recover.
I hope that you have a safe and successful surgery and a speedy and full recovery.
JasonF
04-17-2018, 12:00 PM
A lot of experience in this area with our daughter.
She had UC and got really sick her freshman year of college. Massive doses of all the known drugs didn't work and she came within several hours of passing away due to a perforated colon, and had to have it totally removed in an emergency procedure.
Recovery from the colectomy was difficult because she was so sick - she was in the hospital for 8 weeks after surgery and was down to 70lbs at the nadir.
Her second surgery was 5 months later to create a "J Pouch" as the goal was to not have her live with a colostomy bag forever. This is considered a major surgery on its own and recovery for that took a couple months. By then she was getting her strength back as she had youth on her side.
The final surgery was the "takedown" procedure to connect her small intestine to the j-pouch and thus bypassing the ostomy. Recovery from this surgery was pretty quick - she went with us on vacation a few weeks later.
Two years on she's pretty much back to normal: she has to use the bathroom a bit more than usual (the J Pouch doesn't have the capacity of a rectum) but other than that she is considered "cured" as you can't have UC without a colon. She does all the normal things she used to do, including playing a collegiate sport.
Some takeaways:
- Choice of surgeon is key. Fortunately, our guy @ UPENN is a well-known colo-rectal surgeon and does many of these J-Pouch and takedown surgeries each year. I would advise against using a general surgeon (with all due respect), especially considering you must have access to good specialists in Norcal. We considered Cleveland Clinic for the colon surgeries but stuck with UPenn.
- Docs said that it would be a year to get as close to normal as possible and it took every bit of that to get to the other side. Don't rush things.
I wish you the very best of luck with this.
middec11
04-17-2018, 01:22 PM
OR nurse here, also lots of experience in GI. A resection for colon cancer can be anything from a quick and easy procedure to a huge, complicated case. Almost anyone on this forum will be way ahead of the curve because you will be far healthier and more engaged in your care than the average patient we see. Feel free to pm any questions.
jpritchet74
04-18-2018, 11:59 AM
Thanks for the responses. It is greatly appreciated.
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