Colon cancer success story

In 1992, I was having vague, mild, sometimes there, sometimes not,
pain/discomfort in the right abdominal area, sort of under the liver.   Gall
bladder ultrasound, abdominal CT scan, abdominal MRI, Upper GI, barium
enema, all showed nothing except a hemangioma in the liver (although during
the barium enema, it was 'thought' that they saw something, but upon doing
additional x-rays, it was not seen again so they gave a "no significant
abnormalities noted" report.

A few months later, my internal medicine doctor recommended that I have a
sigmoidoscopy, simply because everybody over a certain age should have one.
During this procedure, he found two small polyps in the sigmoid area.  He
said this would necessitate a colonoscopy to remove them.  A couple of weeks
later, the colonoscopy removed those two small polyps but what is most
important - it found the BIG, BAD, MALIGNANT  polyp up in the bend of the
colon, under the liver.  This, of course, required surgery to remove.  They
took out 18" of the colon and the biopsy showed that the cancer had not
penetrated the wall of the colon.

Having no bleeding, diarrhea , weight loss or other symptoms of colon
cancer, I think I was extremely lucky to have those two small polyps in the
sigmoid area, which necessitated the colonoscopy, which found the cancer.  I
also credit my doctor with very due diligence.  Subsequent colonoscopies
have found a few very small non-malignant polyps, which have been removed.

That's my story.  I am sorry that many others have not been as fortunate as
I.

.................sherry

I did poorly on the petscan, not in the mood to write much more.

Betsy

Can't remember when I last posted (had to reload newsgroups twice in the
last 3 months and just now catching up on the posts)

Dx Invasive BC April'06, then Dx adrenal cancer June'06; surgery for
both; BC chemo completed Dec.06; rad completed Feb.07.
About to celebrate 1 year out from end of treatments.

Just had a 6 month CT 2/18 -- all clear.  But Onc found something
suspicious in remaining breast (my gut said ok).  Had dx mammo and
ultrasound yesterday -- all clear (I have fibrocystic breast disease so
this apparently was just my Onc erring on the positive side).  Whew, I
had a very nervous 24 hours.  At 11:30am yesterday let out a big Woo-hoo
in the ultrasound room!!!  Funny looks from those in the waiting room on
the way out. Ha.

I still lurk this ng and the BC ng via google from work at times and
send out (((hugs))) even though you might not know it. This is a great
group.

Marsha in Memphis (survived the tornado -- ooo, very close -- got in the
bathtub and then got twisted around under a big body pillow --like to
have never got out!)