The Surgeon

An appointment was made for me to see a highly recommended colo-rectal surgeon on Thursday 2nd August. My daughter and son-in-law drove me to the specialist clinic at Westmead Hospital. It was a grueling journey. Lack of adequate street signage caused us to get lost numerous times, not the extra stress you need while trying to deal with the diagnosis of a major illness. However, the surgeon was running very late, over an hour, so we only had to wait a short time. The Surgeon was friendly and had an excellent manner, I liked him immediately and felt this is the right guy to do this operation for me. He explained that he would attempt keyhole surgery (with an incision of 4-5 inches) but would revert to the traditional method of a large incision if there were complications. He assured me that the cancer was in an excellent position for surgery and that unless there were complications I would not have a colostomy( thank God ) if there was a problem and I woke with a colostomy it would definatley be temporary. This was all sounding better than I had expected and my spirits were high. Then he told me that I was now locked into this disease and the testing surrounding it. I would have to have chemotherapy, something I dreaded. Also yearly colonoscopies, regular CT scans and blood tests. The prospect of cure was good, but I would always have the possibility of another bowel cancer developing hanging over my head. He gave me a run down on the way this cancer sits in the Australian population. It is primarily a Western disease, with Australia and New Zealand being the countries with the greatest number of cases per head of population, followed by the USA and then UK. It is linked to diet, not so much what we choose to eat but what is in the foods we eat.
He said that people moving from countries of low incidence to countries of high incidence were, after 20 years, at exactly the same level of risk of getting bowel cancer as the general population even when they continue to eat their traditional foods cooked in traditional ways.
He booked me in for the operation for a little over a week away, I did not want to have to wait and think about what was happening to me. So it was all set in motion, in a little over a week, I would be lying in a hospital bed with a drip, and an incision, and about a foot of my bowel gone, needing pain medication and looking very pale. I was trying to picture it, but still I left feeling hopeful, I guess that was the best I could expect at this point.