I was diagnosed with inoperable colon cancer

My first meeting with the oncologist was the worst. I remember him saying: “You need to prepare yourself that this may not be a positive outcome. All I can do is put you chemotherapybecause it is inoperable.”

This was at the hospital in Cheltenham to which I was referred after initial tests at my local hospital, Hereford Nuffield. My wife was with me and was crying a lot. Then he said: “I’m sorry, these results are specific to tumors in your liver. There are seven. The largest is 5cm.” It was May 2016.

But just over a year later, in July 2017, everything changed. The tumors had shrunk and they were able to operate on my liver. “It’s pretty extraordinary,” said the surgeon who operated on me. My liver was cancer free. This was what he called a “complete response,” and he had seen it in only six out of 1,250 patients. Frankly, we were very happy. He sent me to the bowel specialist, who went on to seek primary treatment. cancer and even though this thing was measured and had pictures, it found no trace in my intestines either. Again it was a complete answer; was the first response he had seen at the time.

It was the best result we could have hoped for. It was the worst year of my life and I couldn’t believe it.

initial diagnosis

Going back to the beginning: I was 44 and experiencing symptoms; I had a pain at the top of my hip, which I attributed to a hockey injury, and sometimes I had blood in my stool. I had been to the GP but they weren’t worried as I was fit and healthy. I eventually got a private doctor through my company Colliers’ healthcare program, who referred me to sigmoidoscopy; It is similar to a colonoscopy with a camera on the tube, but only in the lower part of the intestine. The surgeon said we had to wait for the results, but there he told us that I looked like I had aggressive cancer.