Artificial Anus? Who Knew!?

It has been confirmed that I will need surgery. The surgeon said the tumor has shrunken considerably, but there is no reason to wait any longer, so we have scheduled Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 9:00am for the surgery. It will be at Providence Hospital on 49th and Glisan, downtown Portland. I will also need to be off work on 4/21 as there is some "preparation" to do and I won't be able to drink the preparation fluid and work in the same day.

As far as I know at this point, I will be in the hospital for 5-7 days. I'm guessing it will take another week or so to recover so I'm guessing I may be out of commission until about May 11 or so. I then have an appointment on May 12 with my Oncologist to start another round of Chemotherapy just to make certain we get all of it!

The good news is that there is very high probability (around 90%) that what we are doing, including surgery, will cure the Cancer and I won't have to worry about it spreading to my Liver or Lungs which is how people die from Rectal Cancer.

The bad news is the tumor is still too close to the end of the track and I will need to have a colostomy performed. This is not the end of the world, and is what I've kind of expected as the predicted result, although it really isn't the news we wanted today.

I will be seeing a "stoma" nurse sometime in the next week to discuss what this will mean down the line.

Also, as an encouragement, there are real advances in the "artificial anus" technology field recently...who knew!? The surgeon said once I am confirmed "cancer free" (whatever that means) I would be a prime candidate for that type of procedure because of my age.

Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers and caring words. They do wonders for my soul.