A Summary …

Written By Andy Robinson

My online community has recently asked me to give a quick summary of my medical journey so far. So, here it is …

Overview

I was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer on the 4th of January, 2023.

Since then, I have had 4 operations, two bowel resections (1 scheduled, 1 emergency) and 2 liver resections (1 aborted, 1 successful). I have had 2 surgical procedures for chemo (1 Picc Line, 1 portacath). I have also had 3 rounds of chemo, totalling 22 cycles and one round of 6 cycles of immunotherapy.

CHEMO TREATMENT & SIDE EFFECTS

My chemo treatment has been brutal on occasion, and then sometimes, depending on the drug combinations, it has been tolerable.

I have had the following cocktails of chemo:

I have also, as part of the regimes above, had side effects from some of the individual drugs

  • Panitumumab or Vectibix - Makes you VERY sensitive to the cold (Video Blog 1)

  • 5FU or Fluorouracil - Which gave me Atrial Fibrillation or Afib, visits to the emergency room and a week in the hospital cardiac unit and a procedure to restart my heart called Cardioversion (Video Blog 1, Video Blog 2, Video Blog 3)

SURGERY & RECOVERY

I have only had two surgical procedures, but with both, there were complications which resulted in me having a second operation for both.

Recovery for all of the operations has been brutal. Both involved having massive incisions in my stomach area, and both meant that my core was sliced open. Recovery is arduous as you use your core for everything: getting out of a chair, sitting upright, getting out of bed. Sneezing and coughing become very painful, too!

All the operations took over a month to recover from, and the emergency bowel resection meant a 3-week stay in the hospital and a colostomy, which I was dreading.

Andy Robinson
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